The life of John Cotton

Qass

Book

LIVES

OF THE

CHIEF FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND.

The Lord our God "be with us, as he was with our fa-
thers ; let him not leave us, nor forsake us

1 KiTSQS 8 : 57.

VOL. I.

^ < » » > ■ , ...

v

^

GENERAL INTRODUCTION.

Veneration for departed worth is a sentiment so
natural and proper, that he who is incapable of feel-
ing it, must be regarded as hopelessly ungenerous and
ignoble. The remembrance of the just is a blessing
to them that cherish it. Such memories awaken a
pure ambition ; and lead to the virtuous resolve to em-
ulate, to equal, to exceed the patterns we admire.
The contemplation of exemplary goodness gives life
to magnanimous thoughts, and beneficent purposes.
It is wise to multiply these lessons, and to surround
ourselves with these incentives of excellence. The
Egyptian graced his habitation with the embalmed
persons of his ancestry, hoping that thus their merits
might linger in the abode of their descendants. The
Grecian multiplied the statues of those who had been
distinguished for public or private virtues, believing
that the mute eloquence of the sculptured stone would
not plead in vain for that respect which ends in imita-
tion. So too let us adorn our dwellings with the
memorials of the great and good. Let them be em-
balmed with the odorous spices of grateful remem-
brance. Let the very walls of our houses, garnished
with their portraitures and the pictured story of their
deeds, summon us to a righteous emulation. The

IV INTRODUCTION.

trophies of Miltiades would not suffer Themistocles to
sleep.

As for us, whose homes are on the soil of New
England, we need not go far from our birthplace, to
find the most illustrious examples to be studied and
copied. Since the days of the apostles, there have
been no worthier patterns of Christian character and
primitive piety than the Puritans, to whom we are
indebted for all that gives our people any superiority
in any respect over other nations of the earth. Not
that we are to practice an indiscriminate and idolatrous
veneration. " There are no errors which are so likely
to be drawn into precedent, and therefore none which
it is so necessary to expose, as the errors of persons
who have a just title to the gratitude and admiration
of posterity. In politics, as in religion, there are de-
votees who show their reverence for a departed saint,
by converting his tomb into a sanctuary for crime."
But though the Puritans had their faults and failings,
what sort of moral appetite must that be which fastens
upon and devours these unsavory scraps, and neglects
all that is pure and wholesome in their character 1
If there be any sore spot in their example, these flesh-
flies detect it with unerring instinct, and dart upon it
with a ravenous delight. He who can see nothing
in the sun but its spots must be worse than blind ; for
while his eye gazes with morbid intensity on darkness,
he has no vision for that which is bright and fair.

Luther has said that " evil comes of good :" which
remark accords with the Rabbinical proverb, " Vine-
gar is the son of wine." And we find that even some

INTRODUCTION.

of the descendants of the Puritans have proved so de-
generate as, vi^ith filial impiety, to blacken and revile
the memory of their sires. Foul and unnatural deed !
How doth it react to the degradation and infamy of
its base perpetrators ! " There is no readier way,"
says Tillotson, "for a man to bring his own worth
into question, tlian by endeavoring to detract from the
worth of other men." And this is especially the case
when the slanderer is vilifying his own progenitors.
What can be more odious than to see the child defa-
cing and polluting the sepulchre of his fathers ? The
only disgrace he can fix upon them, is that of having
generated a monster so contemptible as himself. Such
recreant and apostate natures usually exceed all oth-
ers in the avidity and malignity with which they tra-
duce the sainted dead. They do this for the reason
Dryden gives, and he must have known as being one
himself,

"For renegadoes, who ne'er turn by halvea,
Are bound in conscience to be double knaves."

The mists which obscure the sun are exhaled by his
own fervent beams. Envy and detraction are the
shadows which ever follow shining merit. The ca-
lumniators of the Puritans serve as the shades in the
picture, which render the lights more distinct and
vivid. The fair fame of the Puritans shines the more
luminous, when contrasted with the dark dispositions
of their slanderers.

It is but justice to the pious dead to vindicate their
good name, which, as Cicero says, is the appropriate
possession of the departed. And justice to ourselves
1#

VI INTRODUCTION.

requires, that we should preserve untarnished the
reputation of our fathers, so that we may feel its full
influence to quicken our own virtues, and to stimulate
them to greater activity and fruiifulness. Certain it
is, that they will be the most likely to partake of the
excellencies of the Puritans, who most deeply revere
them.

In different ages there have arisen men, too great
or too good for the times in which they lived : — men,
like Israel's martyred prophets, of whom the world
was not worthy. They have strode so far in advance
of their cotemporaries, that as Coleridge said of Mil-
ton, they dwarfed themselves in the distance. Bitter
scorn and bitterer wrath was their portion while they
lived.

And after they are gone, other generations sweep
by, till the same venerable worthies are again almost
lost from view in the dim perspective of the past.
Then are their names again decried, because they
stopped where they did. The most distinguished of
living British essayists has said with a just severity; —
" It is too much that the benefactors of mankind, after
having been reviled by the dunces of their own gener-
ation for going too far, are to be reviled by the dunces
of the next generation for not going far enough."

The world shows its unworthiness of these good
men, either by forgetting their virtues as soon as pos-
sible : or else by remembering their names only to
traduce them. Thus thanklessly and harshly has it
dealt with our pilgrim fathers. But, blessed be the
Lord ! there are not wanting those, who, like " Old

INTRODUCTION. VH

Mortality" among- the trraves of the Covenanters, with
chisel in hand, revisit the resting-place of our Puritan
sires, raising up the fallen n)onuments ; removing the
encroaching mosses; and, with pious care, retouching
the fading inscriptions which the ceaseless stream of
time is wearing away.

Such a pleasing task of filial piety and reverent love
is before us in the present undertaking. Nor doubt
we, that the work is well pleasing unto God, who is
himself, in his providence, the Vindicator of their
wisdom and zeal ; and whose Word has taught us,
that the memory of the just is blessed, and that the
righteous must be had in everlasting remembrance.

These considerations have induced the Publishing
Committee of the Massachusetts Sabbath School So-
ciety to prepare a series of biographical sketches of
some of the distinguished men, who were God's in-
struments in making this country what it is. These
volumes will collect, and present in one view, every
thing which relates to them that can be recovered from
scattered confusion and from oblivion. It is intended
that this exhibition shall bring out the characters,
actions, sufferings and principles of these remarkable
men, in such form as may interest and profit the gen-
eral reader, and not be unuseful to such as may be
studious of the early history of our country.

The Committee have observed with pain, that there
is, in some quarters, a disposition to subject the mem-
ory of the Puritans to what is sometimes significantly
called ' ' cavalier treatment. ' ' The best defence which
can be made of these worthies is to show them as

Vlll INTRODUCTION

they were. Could such an exhibition be made to the
life, it is certain that it would have the same dispers-
ing effect upon their detractors, as the appearance of
Cromwell's unconquered " Ironsides" had upon the
runaways of Naseby, of Preston, and of Worcester.

It is hoped that these volumes will not only find a
place in all our Sabbath school libraries, but may ob-
tain a general circulation among the young men and
young women of our land. It is believed that the
contemplations of these noble examples wiil be found
among the best means of strengthening the minds,
enriching the memories, and settling the principles, of
the young. The moral beauty of the character of the
Puritans consist chiefly in this, — they ivere men of
principle. This made them deliberate in resolving,
and inflexible in performing. The "noble grace of
decision" shone conspicuously in their lives; they
were decided for truth, for conscience, for God. It
was a rich gift of the Holy Ghost, and enabled them
for a work in which all oth^r adventurers must have
failed.

May God bless this undertaking, so that it may help
to revive in power and purity the remnants of the pi-
ety and spirit of the pilgrims which yet linger among
us. May it help to increase the multitudes which,
like the Puritans of old, have gone up, through much
tribulation, from the footstool to the throne !

THE LIFE

OF

JOHN COTTON.

BY Xi' W. M'CLURE,

WrUten for the Massachusetts Sabbath School Society, and
revised by the Committee of Publication.

BOSTON:

MASSACHUSETTS SABBATH SCHOOL SOCIETY,

Depository, No. 13 Cornhill.

1846.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1846,
By CHRISTOPHER C. DEAN,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts.

PREFACE.

The difficulty of preparing a work of this nature
can only be conceived of by one who has tried it.
The mere collecting of the scattered materials, dis-
persed in the obscurest cotners, as they usually are, is
a great labor. It is a greater toil to arrange them in
due order, when once they are collected. The set-
tling of doubtful and contradictory statements is often
a tedious and perplexing business. And then comes
the writing, which the author must accomplish as he
can. The only merit which this little book can claim,
is laborious accuracy bestowed upon a worthy subject.
For its faults in other respects, there can hardly be
any remedy. For, to apply here a rhyme of Presi-
dent Oakes,

"They thai can Cotton's goodness well display,
Must be as good as he :— but who are ihey ?"

In prosecuting the design of the Publishing Com-
mittee of the Massachusetts Sabbath School Society,
it is evident that the distinctive principles of the Puri-
tans must come under review. In order that these
might be more completely presented, they are dis-
cussed somewhat fully in a few chapters devoted to
that object. Accordingly, in this volume, will be found
a chapter occupied with an account of the nature and

Xll PREFACE.

origin of Puritanism, in which our fathers are vindi-
cated from the charge of schism and sinful division of
the Church. Another chapter delineates the main
features of the Congregational Church government.
Another still, exhibits the merits of Congregational-
ism.

May God grant wisdom to all who may take part
in this attempt to revive the memory of the patriarchs
of our land ; and give to the readers grace to profit by
their holy example.

" A lift may find him who a sermon flies."

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

CHAPTER I.

His parentage. Residence at the University. Conversion.

The man whose life and principles will now be
represented, from the vast influence he exer-
cised in his own time, and, consequently, upon
all following times, has been fitly called the
Patriarch of New England. Boston, especially,
is indebted to him for much more than hs name.
He found it but little better than a woody wil-
derness ; and he left it a flourishing town, a sort
of Jerusalem of the West.

John Cotton was a native of Derby, on the
river Derwent, in England. He was born on
the fourth of December, in the year 15S5. He
was descended of ' gentle blood.' His parents
were persons in easy circumstances, and able to
provide him with the necessaries for a good edu-
cation. The father, Roland Cotton, a lawyer
by profession, was distinguished, as well as the
mother, by a solid and fervid piety. The child,
VOL. I. 2

14 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

thus brought forth and brought up, did no dis-
credit to his training. His youth, unstained by
follies, gave no occasion for reproach in after
years. It is pleasing to consider a person, who,
from the cradle to the grave, lived a long life
without spot or blame, other than what arose
from the mistakes of those around him, or those
errors of his own which serve to associate him
with weak humanity, but not with its vices or
its crimes. It is true, that, at certain times,
amid the tempests of passion and prejudice,
much mire and dirt was cast upon his charac-
ter, but none of it would adhere. It all fell off
again, and left his reputation unsullied as ever.

He was admitted to Trinity College, Cam-
bridge, at the early age of thirteen. His father
who had never had many clients before, from
that time had them in abundance. The son,
who had, in consequence, a very liberal main-
tenance, and w^ho also had a watchful eye to
discern the ways of divine providence, was
thereby led to say : — " God kept me at the uni-
versity !"

At this ancient seminary, the nursing mother
of so many eminent Puritan ministers, he spent
fifteen studious years, till he became learned in
all the wisdom of that age of erudite scholars
and deep divines. He was prevented from ob-

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 15

taining a fellowship in his college, only by rea-
son of embarrassments growing out of the
construction of expensive buildings for its use.

He was then chosen a fellow of Emmanuel
College, after a severe examination, which he
triumphantly sustained. He was examined with
special rigor in the Hebrew language. He was
tested more particularly upon the latter part of
the third chapter of Isaiah, which consists of an
inventory of the fineries of the haughty daugh-
ters of Zion, such as might well astonish a
modern Parisian milliner. This passage, which
contains more unusual and perplexing terms
than any other in the Old Testament, occasioned
no trouble to our ardent scholar, who was able
to converse in that tongue. Hebrew literature
was much cultivated among the Puritan divines,
who gave especial attention to those three lan-
guages in which it was stated on the cross, that
Jesus of Nazareth was King of the Jews. And
yet the famed Erasmus, though reputed in his
day to be " the most Greek among the Grecians,
and the most Latin among the Latins," and
thouorh so used to discourse in the latter Ian-
guage as to forget his mother tongue, gave up
the attempt to acquire the Hebrew in utter dis-
couragement. This study, in which Luther so
much delighted, found many expert proficients

16 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

among the spiritual fathers of New England.
Nearly all the first ministers of Massachusetts
cultivated it : and some very singular anecdotes
are preserved to illustrate their familiarity with
that language, which, as John Eliot said, " it
pleased our Lord Jesus Christ to make use of
when he spake from heaven unto Paul." Some
of the laymen bestowed great attention upon it.
Thus Governor Bradford, who had thoroughly
mastered some four or five other languages,
studied the Hebrew most of all ; "because," as
he elegantly said, " he would see with his own
eyes the ancient oracles of God in their native
beauty !"

In the same distinguished College where he
gained his fellowship, Mr. Cotton afterwards
became Head Lecturer ; then Dean, an officer
charged to attend to the deportment and disci-
pline of the students ; and Catechist, an employ-
ment of chief note in the old conventual schools.
He was also Tutor to numerous scholars, by
whom he was held in the highest estimation as
a teacher.

While occupied thus usefully, he was much
honored and admired for the strength and readi-
ness of his mind, and for the vast extent of his
reading. The sermons, which he occasionally
preached in the University, were pompous ha-

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

17

rangues, stuffed with a huge mass of learning
and soaring conceits, according to the taste of
the "vain wits" of that seat of science. These
ostentatious displays made him very popular
with that class of men, who delighted in such
parades of learned lore, as much as they dis-
tasted the plain preaching of the humbling doc-
trines of the cross. Cotton was then one of
their own sort, being himself of that lamentably
numerous class who undertake to preach the
gospel of Christ without having personally felt
its life and power in the heart.

He first distinguished himself by a funeral
discourse for Dr. Some, Master of Peter House,
in which he flourished away with so much arti-
ficial originality, affected eloquence and " orato-
rious beauty," that he came to be regarded as
the Xenophon of the University, and the special
favorite of the muses. Some time after, he de-
livered a University sermon in St. Mary's
Church, which gained the high applause of the
academical pedants, who looked only for a grand
exhibition of what the preacher could do to show
off himself, rather than for a presentation of
"Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling
block, and unto the Greeks foolishness ; but unto
them which are called, both Jews and Greeks,
2=^

18 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of
God."

But the Lord had other employment for this
"chosen vessel." He who had dwelt so long
among those halls of science as one of her most
assiduous devotees, began at last to feel the
higher claims of religion.

In those days there was at Cambridge an em-
inent and godly divine, Rev. William Perkins,
whose name was long precious among our fa-
thers, one of whom made this epigram upon
him, in allusion to a certain natural defect ;

" Though nature thee of thy right hand bereft,
Right well thou writest with thy hand that's left."

This good and able man was sound in the
faith, and deep in the experience of the great
doctrines of the gospel. His ministrations, so
searching to the heart and so rousing to the
conscience, were blessed to the conversion of
many who became some of the brightest lights
of their age. Among others, Mr. Cotton was
much wrought upon by his faithful exhibition of
the truth. But the young and aspiring scholar,
fearing to become engaged in the pursuit of per-
sonal religion, lest it should hinder him in the
studies he was ambitiously following, suppressed,
so far as he could, the motions and stirrings of
his mind. In the pride of intellect, and the lust

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 19

of literary distinction, he resisted the strivings
of the Holy Spirit. For a while, he succeeded
in stifling the still small voice of conviction, till
one day walking in the fields, he heard the bell
tollincT the death-knell of the devout Mr. Per-
kins. At this, Mr. Cotton secretly rejoiced;
and began to congratulate himself, that he should
no more be troubled by him, who had, as he
said, " laid siege to and beleaguered his heart."

But this selfish satisfaction at such a riddance
soon became a cause of great spiritual distress.
It dwelt constantly upon his mind as an aggra-
vated sin, that he had thus exulted at the pros-
pect of being freed, at such a price, from divine
incitements and restraints. God made it " an
effectual means of convincing and humbling him
in the sight and sense of the natural enmity that
is in man's nature against God."

In this state of mind, he heard a sermon from
Dr. Sibbs, a man of great note among the Puri-
tans in the time of the first James. This sermon
was upon the nature and necessity of regenera-
tion. It first showed the state of the unregener-
ate, and the misery of those who have no
righteousness but that of the moral virtues.
Under this discourse, Mr. Cotton felt all his
false hopes and self-righteous confidences failing
him. He found the truth of what the Bible

20 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

taught him, that he was a sinner in the sight of
God, — that he was wholly and helplessly de-
praved, and utterly lost beyond the power of
recovering himself. For near three years, he
was fainting under the burden of desponding
thoughts, feeling that he had willfully withstood
the means of grace and the offers of mercy which
God had extended to him. At length the barbed
arrow, which so long had rankled in his heart,
was plucked away. Through the same wound
from which the bloody drops of contrition had
flowed, the healing grace of Jesus was infused.
This comfort appears to have been ministered to
his soul under the preaching of the same worthy
Dr. Sibbs ; between whom and the happy con-
vert there ever after subsisted " a singular and
constant love," as between a spiritual father and
his son in the faith.

The conversion of Mr. Cotton was of that
primitive, orthodox stamp, which has always
produced the best sort of Christians. There is
reason to suspect that many who are in the habit
of speaking of such a change in terms of levity
and unbelief, would inwardly rejoice if they
could be assured of undergoing the same moral
renovation before they shall be summoned to the
bar of God. There is something in such an
experience which commends itself even to the

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 21

conscience of the scoffer and profane. In the
case of Mr. Cotton it was no rash and reasonless
excitement : but the result of years of anxious
inquiry and mental conflict. It occurred when
he was at the maturity of his powers and in
their highest state of discipline and development.
It was a solid work, on a firm foundation, by the
Almighty hand : and therefore was it a lasting
monument of grace. The subject of it, at the
^ime, was not far from twenty-seven years of
age.

Ere long he was called once more to fill the
old stone pulpit of St. Mary's venerable church.
A numerous auditory of the University men,
attracted by his high reputation, thronged the
place. These were hearers, who, as the excel-
lent John Norton said of them, and he knew
them well, " prefer the Muses before Moses, and
taste Plato more than Paul, and relish the Orator
of Athens far above the Preacher of the Cross."
They were confidently expecting to be regaled
with the heaped up quotations, the philosophical
abstractions, the scholastic subtleties, and rhe-
torical ornaments, by which the preachers on
those occasions were wont to hold up to admira-
tion, not their Master, but themselves. When
Mr. Cotton arose, the hum of approbation, which
used to greet a popular speaker, resounded

22 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

through the temple. But their expectation was
destined to be disappointed. The discourse was
upon the subject o{ repentance, and was enunci-
ated from a heart which had freshly felt the
power of the theme. It was a plain, pungent,
practical address, directly aimed at the con-
science of the hearers. The countenances of
his audience betrayed their discontent ; in token
of which, they pulled down their shovel-caps
over their faces, and listened in sullen mood.

The poor preacher, discouraged with this cold
reception of his zealous endeavors for their good,
retired to his chambers with some sad thoughts
of heart. He had not been long alone, when
Dr. John Preston, then a fellow of Queen's
College, and of great esteem in the University,
knocked at his door. This person, like so many
others, had repaired to the sermon, with his ears
itching to hear a splendid literary performance.
For a while, he manifested his vexation in every
way he could : but ere the close, he was " cut to
the heart" by the sword of the Spirit. Making
an errand of borrowing a book, he called on Mr.
Cotton, with whom he had not been acquainted.
His wounded soul could not keep silence ; and
he sought those spiritual succors which God
blessed to the peace of his mind. This man too
became a powerful preacher of the gospel, and a

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 23

mighty man of renown among the Calvinistic
doctors of that age of giant minds. This nota-
ble seal of his ministry consoled Mr. Cotton for
the manner in which his first evangelical sermon
was received by the many. He never regretted
that he had cast his ostentatious ways aside, and
had sought only to approve himself unto God.
Some of the more religious divines prayed him
to " persevere in that good way of preaching,"
which, by the grace of God, he effectually did.
How true is the remark of the excellent Thomas
Fuller, " It is easier and better for us to please
one God, than many men, with our sermons."
Between Mr. Cotton and Dr. Preston there was
formed one of those most profitable Christian
friendships, which must outlast earth and heaven-
There are no good men, but others are the better
for them.

24 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

CHAPTER II.

Settlement at Boston in Old England. Obstacles to Selileuient.
Spiritual Conflicts. Arminian Controversy. Marriage. Non-
Conformity.

When Mr. Cotton was about twenty-eight years
of age, he was invited by the people of Boston,
in Lincolnshire, to settle in the ministry among
them. Old Boston, whose chief honor now is,
that she imparted her name to her cisatlantic
daughter, was indebted for it to Botolph, an an-
cient Saxon saint ; the name Botolph's town,
having been, in time, contracted to its present
form. In that place, Mr. Cotton labored many
years in the pastoral office, exerting a wonderful
influence upon the character of the people. We
read in Burke's famous speech made long after-
wards on American affairs, the odd quotation
from an old song ; —

Solid men of Boston, make no long orations,
Solid men of Boston, drink no strong potations.

I am ready to believe that this character for so-
lidity, for brevity of speech, and for observing
the " holy dictate of spare temperance," may be

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 25

owing to the labors of this man of God, leaving
their impress upon the descendants of his parish-
ioners there, as I doubt not they have done here.

Mr. Cotton's settlement was not without some
difficulty. The church-warden, with the better
sort of people, desired that he should be their
pastor. But the mayor, with the looser class,
had procured from Cambridge another candidate
more to their minds. When the election came
to be held under the charter, the votes were found
to be equally divided. The mayor, having the
casting vote, by some mistake gave it in favor
of Mr. Cotton. The civic dignitary, mortified
at his error, requested that the vote might be
taken again. His request was complied with,
and resulted as before, in an equal division. And
now, strange to tell, the mayor made the same
mistake, and again gave his casting vote in Mr.
Cotton's favor. In great vexation, the blunder-
ing magistrate insisted upon trying the vote for
the third time ; but the people refused their con-
sent. Thus the choice fell upon Mr. Cotton,
through the unintended act of his most strenuous
opposer.

This obstruction being removed, there came
another in the way. Dr. Barlow, the diocesan,
understanding that the successful candidate was
infected with Puritanism, tried to discourage his

VOL. I. 3

26 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

settlement. The prelate's only objection was,
that Mr. Cotton was too young a man to be set
over such a numerous and factious people. The
young man had so modest an opinion of himself,
that he was satisfied with the objection, and pro-
posed to go back to the University. But some
of his supporters, understanding, as good Mr.
Norton tells us, " that one Simon Bibby was to
be spoken with, who was near to the bishop, they
presently charmed him ; and so the business
proceeded without further trouble, and Mr. Cot-
ton was admitted into the place after their manner
in those days." It looks suspicious in this case,
that the charmers operated upon the said Simon
Bibby, by means of unlawful spells, perchance
mingling the potency of simony and bibificatio7i.
But whatever the nature of their enchantments
may have been, Mr. Cotton cannot be charged
with any knowledge of their proceedings.

About this time he was deeply exercised with
spiritual troubles, even as his Master was sub-
jected to temptation at the beginning of his pub-
lic ministry. There is much truth in Luther's
saying, " that three things make a divine ; med-
itation, supplication, and temptation." It is
probable that few ministers have ever been ex-
tensively useful in the Church of God, without
first passing through severe conflicts of mind

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 27

against doubts, and fears, and unbelief; before
coming to the settled enjoyment of the consola-
tions and supports of the gospel. Taught both
by sterner and by sweeter experience, they learn
how to guide others through similar spiritual
difficulties- It is thus that they become "able to
comfort them which are in any trouble, by the
comfort wherewith they themselves are com-
forted of God."

Engrossed as he was in these severe mental
trials, Mr. Cotton paid no heed to the parties
and factions which disturbed the town. This
sort of impartiality conciliated the good will of
the people, when they saw that the salvation of
his own soul was far more upon his thoughts,
than the contentions and disputes around him.

At that time, there was a Mr. Baron in the
place, a man very skillful in his calling, as a
physician, but who chiefly devoted his studies to
the defence of Arminianism, which he main-
tained on all occasions, with much acuteness and
ability. To his constant conversation, Mr. Cot-
ton silently listened, till he "had learned, at
length, where all the great strength of the doctor
lay." Having mastered all Mr. Baron's scruples
and objections, and, avoiding all those expres-
sions and phrases of others, which afforded that
gentleman any advantage in debate, Mr. Cotton

28 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

began publicly to preach the doctrine of God's
eternal election ; the effectual calling of the sin-
ner by irresistible grace ; and the certain perse-
verance of saints, so that they shall not fall
from a state of grace, either totally or finally.
The result was, that the adverse disputant
desisted from all further debate ; Arminianism
died quite away, without struggle or convulsion,
" and all matters of religion were carried on
calmly and peaceably."

When he had resided at his parish about half
a year, he visited Cambridge, to take his degree
of Bachelor of Divinity. On this occasion, he
added largely to his reputation, by a much ad-
mired sermon to the clergy, from the text ; " Ye
are the salt of the earth ; but if the salt have lost
his savor, wherewith shall it be salted ? " He
also distinguished himself by his skill in a pub-
lic disputation, held in the schools for the purpose
of proving himself qualified for his degree in
divinity. He appeared to high advantage, though
matched against a very keen debater, a Dr.
Chappell ; afterwards Provost of Trinity College,
in Dublin, and a strenuous advocate of Pelagian
sentiments. After gathering these University
laurels, Mr. Cotton returned to his parochial
charge, where he enjoyed the high esteem of
his flock. It is a remark of one of his fellow-

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 29

laborers, " So God disposeth of the hearts of
hearers, as that generally they are all open and
loving to their preachers in their first times ;
trials are often reserved until afterwards. Epi-
phanius calleth the first year of Christ's minis-
try, the acceptable year. — Young Peter girdeth
himself, and walks whither he will; but old
Peter is girded by another, and carried whither
he would not."

Being comfortably settled in his church, he
married Elizabeth Horrocks, " an eminently vir-
tuous gentlewoman.'' The day of their union,
was ever memorable to him, upon another
account ; for it was then, that he first received a
comfortable assurance of God's love to his soul.
The promises of grace and life, were sealed upon
his heart by the Holy Spirit ; and this comfort
con^tinued with him, in some happy measure,
through the residue of his days. He would
often say of the day of his espousals, " God made
it a day of double marriage to me ! " for it was
then that he obtained the blessed evidence of the
marriage-union of his soul with Christ.

His worthy companion was of great assistance
to him in his ministry, in many respects; but
especially in this, that she greatly promoted his
usefulness among those of her own sex. The
female members of the congregation, taking
3#

30 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

notice of her uncommon discretion and piety,
would freely impart to her the state of their
minds upon the subject of religion, acquainting
her with their difficulties, and the points on
which they stood in need of special counsel and
instruction. The information she imparted to
her husband, enabled him to adapt his public
teaching to the wants of his hearers, and to ren-
der it far more conducive to their spiritual good.
If experience can prove any thing, it has abun-
dantly proved that the judicious marriage of a
clergyman greatly enhances his usefulness, and
his estimation among his flock. It not only
places him as " a family man," in close sympa-
thy with the families of his flock, but it puts him in
unexceptionable communication with the female
portion of his charge. He thus obtains a suffi-
ciently confidential knowledge of the condition
of their minds, and also the opportunity of meet-
ing their wants as a religious shepherd and
guide. He in this manner becomes qualified to
benefit them, far beyond what it would be prac-
ticable or desirable to do by means of personal
familiar intercourse. It is not without reason,
that the Apostle gives repeated counsel, that
every elder or parochial bishop, should be " the
husband of one wife," neither more nor less.
After Mr. Cotton had spent three years in

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 31

Boston, his deep and devout studies brought him
to a solemn conviction, that there were many-
antiquated corruptions yet left unreformed in the
national Church, with the practice of which he
could not comply. From this time, he ceased to
conform strictly to the Church of England,
though he never voluntarily renounced its com-
munion.

The next chapter will be devoted to an account
of the origin and nature of Puritanism, of which
John Cotton was a staunch and uncompromising
advocate.

32 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

CHAPTER III.

Necessity of Controversy. Necessity of Reforming the Church,
Romish corruption had taken away Christ's threefold office.
Reformation in England restored his prophetical and priestly offi-
ces. His kingly office not restored. Relics of Popery retained in
the National Church. Puritans demand a complete Reformation.
The principle involved Nehushtan. How the principles of
Congregationalism are reached. Puritans persecuted. Their
conduct under persecution. Take refuge in New England,
Happy results of their removal. The charge of Schism triumph-
antly retorted. The Massachusetts settlers no separatists. Laud,
the great schismatic. His party were the separatists. Address
from the Arbella. The "standing order" in New England no
"sect." Puritanism as necessary now as in the days of our fa-
thers. Appeal to the sons of the Pilgrims.

The Puritans lived in an age of controversy.
It was one of those periods when the vast sea of
human opinions, convulsed under chafing winds
and weltering waves, sweeps away many of the
ancient landmarks, and often, by their removal,
restores to their forgotten prominence such land-
marks as are more ancient than they. It was a
time when the earthquakes of political and re-
ligious agitation disturbed every existing insti-
tution ; throwing all their foundations out of
course, that they might settle down at last upon

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

33

a basis more firm and square. Novel errors
assailed old truths, and new truths grappled with
antiquated errors. Perhaps there has never
been a waking up of the human mind so general
and so intense, as during that prolonged season
of every kind of conflict. Such seasons must
result in the advancement of truth, the progress
of the human mind, and the improvement of the
social state. Truth is ultimately, always stron-
ger than her foes. Whatever may be the inci-
dental evils of controversy, they are not so great
as the evils it prevents or does away. It is a
sharp remedy : but it is less painful than the
diseases which it checks or heals. Such keen
debate is only to be regretted as aUogether inju-
rious, when it arrays the real friends of truth
against each other in disputes about matters of
inferior moment. In such cases the acrimony
is usually in an inverse ratio to the importance
of the point discussed. We may then exclaim
in the language of the " facetious Fuller," allud-
ing to a passage in the prophet Joel ; — " Alas I
that men should have less wisdom than locusts,
which, when sent on God's errand, did not
thrust one another.'^

The necessity of reform in the church arose
from its corruption. The leaven of this corrup-
tion had begun to work even before the decease

34 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

of the apostles. "^ And from that time, the
spreading fermentation, diffusing itself through
a long course of ages, at last leavened nearly the
whole mass with the sour crudities of popery.
No doubt, the church as yet unreformed was the
true church, just as a tree decayed and maimed
is still a true tree. But there was need that the
dead limbs should be lopped down, and thre rotten
wood cut out, and the eating funguses removed,
and the encroaching mosses and other hurtful
parasites scraped off, and the heterogeneous
grafts pruned away. In short, there was much
that wanted to be done, to restore the aged tree
to a natural and vigorous growth, without am-
putating any part that retained its health and
soundness. It was not the design of the reform-
ers to institute a new church : but to restore the
integrity and purity of the old. And so far as
it experienced such reformation, it is primitive,
apostolical and catholic.

Antichrist had so far prevailed, as greatly to
interfere with the sole Headship of Christ in
and over his church. His threefold office of
chief Prophet, high Priest, and only King, had
been dangerously and ruinously invaded. The
light of the gospel, obscured by foggy ignorance

* 2 Thesd. 2 : 7.

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 35

and fuming- errors, had left the world in dark-
ness.

" O blindness of our earth- incrusled minds !
In what a midnight shade, what aombrous clouds
Of error, are our souls immersed, when Thou,
O Sun supreme, no longer deign'st to shine \"

Welcome, thunder : — and welcome, hurri-
cane ; — if those gloomy, fatal clouds are thereby-
swept away. Luther, wake the storm, that the
heavens may be cleared ; and the Sun of Right-
eousness shine forth in his strength !

Christ's prophetical office, as the authoritative
teacher of his Church, had been infringed by
substituting the teachings and traditions of men
in the place of his instructions. The pure doc-
trines of his Word were no longer taught or
understood. Dogmas wholly subversive of them
were received instead. The grace which re-
deems and renews the sinner, and which it is
the main design of the Bible to inculcate, was
lost sight of. Nothing was regarded but such
matters as the efficacy of penance and indulgen-
ces, the nature of purgatory and transubstantia-
tion, and other things as contrary to the lessons
of the Bible as Belial is to the Christ of God.

The priestly office of Jesus, who is the only
atoning sacrifice and the one Mediator between
God and men, was no less invaded. The doc-

36 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

trine that human merit can av^ail to purchase
salvation displaced that most fundamental article
of Christianity, that remission of sins and the
gift of eternal life is through faith alone. It was
held, that the sacraments of themselves had
power to sanctify the recipients ; although the
gospel denies all efficacy to forms and ceremo-
nies, aside from the special influence of the Holy
Spirit. Other mediators with God were set up
by the side of Jesus, and even above him, in the
affection and confidence of the worshipers.
Full faith was given to all manner of absurd
miracles, alledged to be wrought by hermits, and
departed saints, and other celestial beings.

" Such tales monastic fablers taught,
Their kindred strain the minstrels caught;
A web of finer texture they
Wrought from the rich romantic lay."

The virgin mother ; with a host of martyrs of
all sorts, real and fabulous ; with numberless
saints, many of them of uncertain existence, and
others of very dubious sanctity ; with good spir-
its and legendary angels : all these were relied
upon in vows and prayers, to the injury of the
Redeemer's exclusive right to stand and inter-
cede between the sinner and his God.

These infractions of his claims were attended
by the usurpation of Christ's kingly office. In

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 37

despite of his just prerogative to be supreme
Head and Lawgiver in his own kingdom, men,
assuming to act by his authority, dared to set
aside his laws, and supplant them by ordinances
of their own invention^ The Son of God had
prescribed the terms of membership and commu-
nion in the church which he had purchased \vith
his own blood, and the mode of dealing with
offenders : he had deposited with the church the
sacred "power of the keys" wherewith to bind
and loose : he had indicated the character of the
officers under his government, and defined the
nature of their authority and their duties : and
he had stamped upon his worship and ordinances
a simplicity becoming to their spiritual charac-
ter. But a usurping hierarchy, engrossing a
powder belonging to none but Christ, had over-
turned all his enactments ; and instituted cere-
monies and modes of worship utterly foreign to
his will ; and imposed terms of communion and
office in the church, totally repugnant to the
divinely appointed order and discipline of the
house of God.

Such were the gross abuses and corruptions
which had long prevailed, before the Protestant
Reformation, — that moral equator of the world's
history. It had become necessary to " prove all
things ;" and rejecting the evil, to hold fast to

VOL. I. 4

38 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

that which is good. One of the old divines has
correctly said : — " The reformers disclaimed only
the ulcers and sores, not what was sound in the
existing church."

Now in England, during the reigns of the
eighth Henry and some of his next successors,
the needful reformation had advanced so far as
to terminate the open infractions of Christ's pro-
phetical and priestly offices. The doctrines he
taught were openly professed once more : and
free salvation by his atonement and intercession
was now preached again.

But here the work came to a stand. The in-
vasions of the royal and legislative office of the
Saviour were not redressed. The only altera-
tion was a change of usurpers. The pope and
his myrmidons were cast out only to make room
for another set who claimed to be heads and law-
makers to that city of God, which owed alle-
giance and obedience in these matters to the
Lord alone.

The Anglican Church had never been thor-
oughly purged from the remnants of popery.
They, who first took the work in hand, were not
able, in consequence of the premature death of
the sixth Edward, to carry it on so far as they
intended. And such as came after them strove
rather, so far as they could, to retrace their steps

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 39

toward the recently forsaken Babylon. It was
not without reason that one of the divines of the
Church of England exclaimed : — " What need
hath reformation itself to be frequently reformed,
seeing corruptions will so quickly creep there-
into." That Church retained so much of the
essence of popery, that Rome, to this day, has
never given up the hope that her vagrant daugh-
ter will yet return to her embraces. Says Ed-
ward Weston, a Jesuit in the time of Henry
VIII ; — " The English drove the pope out of the
kingdom so hastily, that they forced him to leave
his garments behind him : and now they put
them on, and, like so many players acting their
parts, they dance in them in a way of triumph."
And the bloody Bonner, then Bishop of London,
playfully remarked, in allusion to the supersti-
tions which were retained ; — " If they sup of
our broth, they will soon eat of our beef!" The
archbishop of Spalato, who came to England in
1616, declares in a letter to bishop Hall, that he
saw nothing reformed there but the bare doctrine
of the church. It is not strange, therefore, that
a strong tendency toward Rome has been ever
betraying itself in that quarter. Bishop Taylor
considered his church to be separated from that
of Rome merely "by " a paper wall." And
though some excellent men have affirmed that

40 LIFE OF JOHN COTTPN.

the said paper wall was "just the thickness of
the Bible," other men have found no difficulty
in surmounting it, and getting back into the
Italian fold. The church theory of the Angli-
cans is the same as that of the Romanists.
Both communions are based upon the same pre-
tensions : they rest alike on that ecclesiastical
figment, which is miscalled " apostolical succes-
sion." If this be a good reason for being a pre-
latist, it is a far stronger reason for being a papist.
The pope urges the same arguments against the
prelatists, that these latter use against us : and
the same reasons justify us for disowning the
supremacy of the prelates, which justify them
for disowning the supremacy of the pope. It is
natural that the high churchmen of England and
elsewhere should sigh for such a reconciliation
as might procure an endorsement of their claims
by the pretended successors to St. Peter's chair.
It is easy to understand the zeal of the Oxford
divines, whose labors threaten to give occasion
for renewing the complaint of archbishop Laud,
" a man whom it is an act of self-denial to
name without some epithet of reproach." In
his dying speech, he said; — "The Church of
England is become like an oak, cleft to shivers
with wedges made out of its own body."

John Cotton, and other Puritans, regarded the

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 41

Church of England as wofully dissenting from
the true Church of Christ, by her making the
monarch of the realm her head and ruler. The
king of Britain, say they, is a " protestant in
taking, not in giving." Honest Fuller says ; —
" The pope being dead in England, the king
was found his heir at common law, as to most
of the power and profit the other had usurped."
This impious intrusion of an earthly prince, who
might oftentimes be a monster of profligacy, or
perhaps a mere child, a girl, into the throne of
Zion's King, was more than the Puritans, ever
jealous for the rights and honors of their Lord,
could brook. They felt that "the church by
law established" had dissented from the true
basis of the church of God, because her articles
of faith and frame of government rested on acts
of parliament, which has power to new model
her at will : whereas she should have stood upon
the simple foundation of the Word of God.
Osborne observes, in his Memoirs of Queen
Elizabeth ; — " The doctrine professed most gen-
erally in England, bore in foreign nations the
name of parliament faith. "=^ This phrase often
occurs in the letters of Erasmus.

Now the Puritans demanded, in the name of

* Parliamentaria fides,

4*

42 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

the Lord, that his royal power and privilege
should be restored to him. New England had
her "judicious Hooker," him of Hartford, the
fellow-voyager with John Cotton to these shores.
This good man thus explains the object sought by
himself and his brethren ; — " As the prophetical
and priestly office of Christ, was completely vin-
dicated in the first times of reformation, so now
the great cause and work of God's reforming
people is, to clear the rights of Christ's kingly
office, and in their practice to set up his king-
dom.'"^ They received the name of Puritans
from their resolute attempt to restore to their
primitive purity the Christian faith and institu-
tions, according to the principles laid down by
the adorable Founder of Christianity. Their
sentiments are thus expressed by the celebrated
Dr. John Owen : — " They who hold communion
with the Lord Jesus Christ, will admit nothing,
practice nothing, in the worship of God, but
what they have his warrant for. Unless com-
ing in his name, they will not hear an angel
from heaven. They know the apostles them-
selves were to teach the saints only what he
commanded them. And you know how many
in this very nation, in the days not long since

* Preface to Survey of Church Discipline.

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 43

passed, yea, how many thousands left' their na-
tive soil, and went into a vast and howling wil-
derness, in the uttermost parts of the world, to
keep th§ir souls undefiled and chaste unto their
dear Lord Jesus, as to this matter of his worship
and institutions."^

It is necessary that we should understand the
principle involved in this great controversy.
The Puritans did not contend for the abolishing
of a few harmless or insignificant ceremonies
more or less. They were willing, in the main,
that such as chose to practice them voluntarily
should do so. But they resisted the arbitrary
imposition of those ceremonies upon those who
conscientiously disliked them. And they re-
sisted the imposition of such things as conditions
of membership and ministry in the church,
chiefly because they abrogated the only condi-
tions which Christ had seen fit to establish, and
presumed to bring in others by the force of hu-
man enactments. They held, that the attempt
to annul the terms of citizenship and office
which Christ had decreed in his spiritual king-
dom, and to substitute and enforce others of hu-
man devising, was an act of usurpation, and
essentially treasonable and rebellious against the
King of Zion.

* Communion with God.

44 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

To comprehend the merits of this controversy,
we are not to look at the importance of the
points objected to in the forms of the national
church, considered in themselves. In itself, it
may be of very little consequence, whether, or
not, ordination shall be exclusively performed
by diocesans, — or whether or not the sign of the
cross shall be used in baptism, — or whether the
externals of public worship shall be performed
in one way or another way, — or whether the
Lord's Supper shall be received in this posture
or in that. These, it may be, are small ques-
tions to divide the church about. And yet it
argues much more of smallness of soul to insist
that they shall always be answered in one par-
ticular way, as did the prelatical party, than to
insist that every one should enjoy his own pref-
erence in such matters, according to the free
spirit of Christianity, as did the Puritans. They
cared the less whether these things were essen-
tial or not. But it became a question of awful
magnitude, when they began to ask. By what
right do men, setting aside the regulations of
Christ, assume to say ; — " Conform to our can--
ons and decrees, albeit your Lord has never
enjoined them : else you shall have no place in
the house of God !" In this imperious demand,
the Puritans saw not only an act of grievous

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 45

tyranny over the consciences of the disciples, the
free-born children of tlie house ; but they beheld
an appalling invasion of the exclusive rights and
dignities of the Lord and Master of the house-
hold. It was not merely against the unrighteous
exclusion of faithful men from the communion
of the church and its covenanted mercies, against
which our fathers protested ; but it was much
more against proceedings so derogatory to the
glory of the Mediator's throne. Even such tri-
vial affairs as crucifixes and surplices acquire a
magnitude not properly belonging to them, when
they trench upon our allegiance to the Prince of
life. Let it cost what it will, the supreme and
undivided sovereignty and headship of Christ
over all things pertaining to the church must be
preserved inviolate and entire.

Our later fathers, in the revolutionary times,
acted like sound political puritans. Those
staunch Boston boys did not make one great tea-
pot of our harbor, and tinge its waters, as we
say, with that greenish cerulean hue which it
has never lost : — they did not thus hasten the
glorious independence of these colonies, because
they were too penurious to pay for the Chinese
leaf three pence in the pound more than was
proper. Oh no : — it was because they withstood
the odious and tyrannical principle of taxation

46 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

without representation. They stood for the
right which, Burke says, " the Anglo-Saxon
race have claimed in all ages, of being taxed
only with their own consent." They were read-
ier to die than to submit to this paltry import
duty : for they saw that it was designed to sanc-
tion a practice which must wrest from them the
most cherished of their British liberties, and
bring in a thousand forms of oppression upon
them and their posterity.

Possibly, some of the ceremonies of the church
may have been once innocent, and even useful,
like the venerable sign of the cross. But when,
by long abuse, they had come to be inseparably
coupled with superstition, there was good cause
why the observance of them, at least the compul-
sory observance, should cease. Among the
commendable actions of the pious Hezekiah, we
read that he "brake in pieces the brazen serpeni
that Moses had made ; for unto those days, the
children of Israel did burn incense to it ; and he
called it, Nehushtan ; " — that is, a mere piece of
brass. Now this was a most precious relic of
antiquity. By means of it, God had wrought a
most wonderful deliverance for his people. It
was even a type of the Messiah himself, who
should yet be uplifted by the gospel, even " as
Moses lifted up that serpent in the wilderness,"

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 47

SO that perishing souls might look to him and
live. And yet the Jewish king, like a godly and
zealous Puritan, as in his time he was, dashed
it to fragments, that it should no more be per-
verted to idolatrous purposes. They who approve
this deed, which God himself approved, canno^
but justify the image-breaking of our fathers."

The church had become encrusted with many
successive layers of corrupt innovation. For
ages, these accretions had been forming one
upon another. The wish of the Puritans was,
to peel off these lamina ; and to remove them
all, till they should come down to the original
proper substance of the Church. They were for
unwinding the interminable mummy-cloths, by
which the Church had been nearly bandaged
into a corpse ; and so restoring her to life and
enjoyment, to beauty and action. They followed
the plan of stripping off all those usages which
could not plead the recorded inspiration of the
Bible in their favor. They rejected every canon
and custom, of whose origin they could tell the
date, and of whose originators they could give the
names. And when all these foreign, unconge-
nial and injurious inventions, which had been
superimposed upon the primitive discipline, had
been removed, they found as the result, our no-
ble Congregational Church Polity. Take any

48 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

existing Church, and deprive it of all the pecu-
liarities for which it is indebted to man, until
nothing is left but what is of divine institution,
and the pure Scriptural residuum, thus purged
of human adulterations, will be simple Congre-
gationalism. Tliis system of Church polity,
perfectly accords with the genius of Christianity,
and is instinct with the free spirit of our religion.
For reducing their views on the subject of
Church government to practice, and for acting in
accordance with their convictions, it is well known
that our fathers were very roughly handled by
those who claimed to be their ecclesiastical su-
periors. The persecuted men submitted to their
sufferings for the Lord's sake. It was no part
of their policy, to conduct themselves so outra-
geously, as, in a manner, to compel magistrates
to restrain, or mobs to assail them. The\' did
not first by their misbehavior, necessitate a tu-
multuous opposition ; and then raise a piteous
cry of " Persecution ! persecution ! " The plan
of trading in this sort of capital, and making
their gains out of the sympathy of a silly multi-
tude led away by such tricks of " moral reform,"
was an invention of after times. When it could
be avoided, our fathers shunned the stroke of
oppression, and shielded themselves in every
justifiable way. But wlicn it was inevitable.

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 49

they met it calmly and courageously, they bore
it meekly and piously, as the chastening of the
Lord. In Luther's " Table Discourses," we find
that bold reformer saying ; — " When governors
and rulers are enemies to God's word, then our
duty is to depart, to sell or forsake all we have,
to fly from one place to another, as Christ com-
mandeth. We must make and prepare no
uproars and tumults, by reason of the gospel ;
but we must suffer all things."

Thus did the Puritans. When a parish min-
ister in England, found any of the practices of
the National Church to be contrary to the sim-
plicity and obedience of Christ, he discontinued
the use of them. He abandoned one such point
after another, as fast as his conscience was
enlightened in respect to them. Meanwhile, he
kept quietly along in the discharge of all his
ministerial functions. If the ecclesiastical pow-
ers took no notice of his non-conformity as to
their unrighteous regulations, as was often the
case for considerable periods together, the man
of God labored peacefully and zealously for the
salvation of the flock committed to his care, by
the providence of the great Head of the Church.
When at last the vigilant eye of official despo-
tism, took notice of his Puritanism, he sought to
screen himself from the coming storm, by calling

VOL. I. 5

60 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

to his aid such protectors as he could find.
When such means failed, and warrants were
issued for his arrest and imprisonment, he then
" fled from one city to another ; " he either con-
cealed himself among friends, till the tempest
should blow over, or strove to escape through
ports strictly guarded to prevent his departure,
and live as an exile in some foreign land. But
if he fell into the hands of those who would lord
it over a conscience which refused obedience in
spiritual matters to any but Christ, he then sub-
mitted with dignified resignation, to the pains
and penalties of the law. He refused to renounce
his Master ; but he refused not to suffer for him.
Of such, some, subjected to fines and confisca-
tions, " took joyfully the spoiling of their goods ;"
" and others had trial of cruel mockings and
scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and impris-
onment ; " and others still " refused not to die,
for the name of the Lord Jesus."

When extruded from their parish churches,
they met, in retired places, such part of their
flocks as sought their instructions, with a love
for the truth which surmounted the sense of peril ;
for the arm of power sought to suppress these
" conventicles," as they were opprobriously
termed. And yet, originally, this was a most
honorary name ; for the primitive churches were

LIFE OP JOHN COTTON. 61

called " conventicles," by the pagan emperors,
in those days when the Roman sword dripped
with an unceasing stream of martyr's blood. "^

When driven forth as banished men, our
fathers did not feel that they were forsaking the
sacred cause of the gospel. Their exile to these
western shores was a confession that the faith
was dearer to them, than all the cherished
objects of attachment they left behind. They
thus evinced how much they " preferred Jerusa-
lem above their chief joy." They regarded
their exodus from the land of bondage, as " not
a flight /ro??i duty, but unto duty." Here they
were enabled to bear a more decided testimony
against the intermixture of human inventions,
with divine ordinances, than they could have
done elsewhere. Here only, could they main-
tain in their purity, the worship and polity of
the gospel. We see the wisdom of God in
transplanting them to these vacant deserts, whose
remoteness made them more fit for free and
untrammeled inquiry for the ordinances of the
Bible. Here no antiquated prejudices rudely
thwarted the investigating mind. No frowning
cathedral, with gloomy pomp, predisposed the
mind of the worshiper to accord with usages.

* Arnobius, Lib. 4. Ed. Lugd., p. ir)2. Lactanlius, Inst. Lib. 5.
c. 1 1. De Morte Persec. cc. 15, 34, 36, 48.

52 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

which, for centuries, had obscured the evangeli-
cal sincerity. Amid the aisles of the forest, and
beneath the dome of heaven, surrounded by na-
ture in its pristine state, as yet, untouched by art ;
environed by the works of the Creator, which
the hands of man had not assayed to remodel,
our fathers reverently hearkened to the oracles
of God. In this temple not made with hands,
they first celebrated that worship, which is not
of mere human appointment. It was thus, in
the wilderness, that God gave to Moses the pat-
tern of the tabernacle. It was while he was an
exile in an uncultured part of Chaldea, that
Ezekiel saw the plan of the temple. It was
during his banishment to the desert isle of Pat-
mos, that the Apostle beheld that glorious vision
of the city of God. And it was amid these pri-
meval solitudes, that God more distinctly mani-
fested to our pilgrim sires, the true frame and
model of the primitive Church. Here they
afforded a specimen of the new heavens and the
new earth, " which, according to his promise,
we look for."

For having obeyed their consciences, which
bid them obey the Bible, — for having followed the
leading of the Scripture, which is at once the
two-edged sword and royal sceptre of the Son of
God in his spiritual kingdom, — for refusing to

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 53

keep the commandments and traditions of men, —
the Puritans have been covered w^ith reproaches.
Especially have they been charged with the
odious accusation of separation from the true
Church of God ; breaking out of her enclosure,
and casting themselves, in all the presumption of
unbelief, on the uncovenanted mercies of God.
No pains have been spared to heap scorn upon
their name, and to brand them with the odious
crime of schism.

But this charge of schism they hurled back,
like Abdiel replying to the prince of darkness,
*' with retorted scorn." One of them, speaking
of the Laudians, and their triple plot of Armini-
anism, Romanism, and civil Despotism, for the
promotion of all which they so furiously urged
conformity, makes the following strong remarks :
" We dare not be guilty of the schism which we
charge upon that party in the Church of England :
and if any faction of men will require the assent
and consent of other men to a vast number of
disputable and uninstituted things, and utterly
renounce all christian communion with all that
shall not give that assent and consent, we look
upon those to be separatists."

The Puritans did not consider themselves as
excluded from communion by the Church of
England, but by a schismatical faction which
5*

54 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

had gotten the upper hand in that communion.
They ever insisted that they were true and
faithful sons of that ancient Church : " nor did
they think it was their mother who turned them
out of doors," but some of their mother's children
who were angry with them, and who, abusing
ihe name of their mother, so harshly treated
them. They held, that the true Protestant Re-
forming Church of England, comprehended all
faithful, baptized Christians, however variant,
as to modes of belief and practice in lesser points
of religion, and wherever dispersed, throughout
the then British dominions. This holy and
catholic fellowship they steadfastly maintained.
They felt that it was unjust and libelous, that
they should be stigmatized as Schismatics,
merely because they were determined, as Christ-
ians ought to be, to allow of no unauthorized
intrusion upon the kingly office of their Lord.
They were sensible, that they were grossly
wronged in being treated as heretics, only for
conforming to the will of Christ, instead of the
will of man ; and for seeking to restore the sacred
streams of ecclesiastical usage to the primitive
channels, from whence they had been drawn
aside into so many branching canals by the
innovators of a dozen centuries. The Puritans
agreed with Bishop Stillingfieet in the preface to

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 55

his Irenicum, that Christ, "who came to take away
the insupportable yoke of the Jewish ceremonies,
certainly did never intend to gall the necks of
disciples with another, instead of it ; and it
w^ould be strange, if the church would require
more than Christ himself did ; and make more
terms of communion, than our Saviour did of
discipleship." " The grand commission the apos-
tles were sent out with, was only to teach
v;hat Christ had commanded them ; not the least
intimation of any power given them to impose or
require any thing, beyond what he himself had
spoken to them, or they were directed to by the
immediate guidance of the Spirit of God." To
the statutes of Christ, promulgated by the in-
spired Apostles, the Puritans ever gladly sub-
mitted. Though they refused to subscribe to
parliament canons, they were always ready to
subscribe to the New Testament. When Arch-
bishop Laud undertook to cut ofT such members
from the Church, our fathers regarded him as a
man who should bestride one bough of a tree,
and fall to sawing it off between himself and the
main-trunk, under pretence of lopping off the
whole tree ! They looked upon Laud as the
grand Schismatic, who was destined to catch a
severe fall as the result of his sectarizing opera-
tions. The last stroke of his axe, he felt in his

66 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

own person, at what time the oppressed rose up
in desperation, " and wronged the wronger till
he rendered right."

There are many good reasons which will jus-
tify a man for transferring his covenant relation
from one true church, to another such. No
exception can be taken at the opinion of Dr.
Ames ; — " If any, wronged with unjust vexation,
or providing for his own edification, or in testi-
mony against sin, depart from a church where
some evils are tolerated, and join himself to
another more pure, yet without condemning the
church he leaveth, he is not therefore to be held
as a schismatic, or as guilty of any other sin. '"^
To leave even a pure church, for one compara-
tively more pure, provided it be done with due
love and respect toward the body which is left,
is no rupture of spiritual unity, or breach of
Zion's peace. " Unity in diversity, and diver-
sity in unity, — is a law of nature, and also of
the Church." Though every tent-pin which
really belongs to the tabernacle, is hallowed and
precious, we should not break the cords, or rend
the curtains to pieces, for the sake of driving
every pin with the utmost exactness.

The guilt of schism, where it is actually in-

* Book of Conscience, Book iv: ch. xiv. no 16.

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 57

curred, is terrible indeed. It is hateful in the
sight of the Lord. More rude than the soldiers
at the cross, it rends asunder his seamless ves-
ture. Nay in its wilder and more savage exces-
ses, it would fix its demon clutches on his sacred
and mystical body, to rend it, if that were possi-
ble, limb from limb.

Now if there were any schism involved in the
wide division of sentiments between the Puri-
tans, and the domineering heads who were then
lording it over God's heritage, we contend that
the fault lay wholly with the latter. They re-
fused to part with the popish relics which still
hung thick about the " Church by law estab-
lished," and which the first reformers had only
left for a season, till the state of public opinion
among the body of the people should be suffi-
ciently enlightened to permit the entire abolition
of them. Though the time had come when
these vestiges of popery might have been peace-
fully thrown off, the Laudians not only clung
tenaciously to them, but used every exertion to
restore as much as possible of the accursed Baby-
lonish vesture which had been cast aside. The
Puritans, who " hated even the garments spotted
by the flesh" of the idolatrous Church of Rome,
contracted no schismatic taint by their endeavors
to escape all contact with so much as one pol-

58 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

luted shred worn by that ancient harlot who had
reveled so long on the spoils of Christ's king-
dom, and made herself drunk with the blood of
her saints. Well were they vindicated in a
speech of the eloquent Chatham, in the house of
Lords, in 1773. Dr. Drummond, archbishop of
York, had taxed the non-conforming clergy as
men of " close ambition." "They are so, my
lords," retorted the noble earl, " and their ambi-
tion is to keep close to the college of fishermen,
not of cardinals ; and to the doctrine of inspired
apostles^ not to the decrees of interested and
aspiring bishops. They contend for a spiritual
creed and a spiritual worship ; we have a Calvin-
istic creed, a popish liturgy, and an Arminian
clergy." Sure it was no sin for the Puritans to
do their best to bring the church out of such an
unnatural and unreasonable predicament, even
if it could only be effected by a remedy adequate
to the disease, — another Protestant reformation.
But we take stronger ground than this, in
vindicating our conscientious fathers from the
sin of schism. They did not willfully and will-
ingly withdraw from the communion of the par-
ish churches of England. As Chillingworth
says, they were " nonfi/gitivi, sedfugati ;" they
were not voluntary fugitives, but were driven to
compulsory flight. They were not spontaneous

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 69

seceders ; they were expelled by force and pow-
er. They would have remained in the folds
wherein they were born, had they been suffered
to do so, except on the impossible condition of
defiling their consciences and violating the Word
of God. They may have trembled somewhat at
the menaces of the great; but they trembled much
more at the Word of the Lord. They were
willing that others should conform, who could
do it without hurting their own consciences.
Even Luther coulH say ; — " I could be well
content to hold the pope in befitting respect and
honor, yet so far that he permitted me to have
my conscience at liberty, and forced me not to
oflfend my God, and to act any thing against

him."

But the non-conformists of England were not
allowed to abide in the national church, nor even
in the realm, except on the hard alternative of
conforming to what they felt to be sin, or else
mhabiting the prisons. They went not forth of
their own accord ; they were thrust out at the
sword's point. It was thus that they became
" strangers unto their brethren, and aliens unto
their mother's children." Who, then, were the
schismatics ? — the men, who, willing to tolerate
others, refused to sin against the sole supremacy
of Christ in his Church ? — or they who imposed

60 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

unscriptural terms of communion, and exacted
strict conformity as the price of toleration ?
Says Hales of Eaton ; — " Where cause of schism
is necessary, there, not he that separates, but he
that occasions the separation, is schismatic."^
We cannot but think that the sin of schism, if
any there be, cleaves to the tyrannous and im-
perious exactors of things which Christ has
never commanded ; and not to the pious recu-
sants. To these last may well be applied the
parting benediction of Moses ; — " Let the bless-
ing come upon the head of Joseph, and upon the
top of the head of him that was separated from
his brethren."

The year 1662 is forever memorable in the
annals of the sufiering non-conformists. Then
was passed and enforced the infamous act of
uniformity, which deserves to be classed" with
the rescripts which caused the Bartholomew
massacres, and with the revocation of the edict
of Nantes. That act of uniformity was the di-
viding stroke of separation, and it was not dealt
by the hands of the Puritans, but by those of
their relentless oppressors. Jonathan Mitchell
was then pastor of Cambridge in New England:
a man of whom Baxter said ; — " If there could
be convened an oecumenical council of the whole

♦ Tract concefning schism, in Sparks' Collection, v. 25.

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 61

Christian world, that man would be worthy to
be the moderator of it."^ On the last day of that
eventful year, the matchless Mitchell, as his
friends loved to call him, wrote as follows ; —
" Our cause is not separation from any thing
good in other churches, whether truth of church-
state, or any doctrine rightly professed, or ordi-
nance rightly administered in them. But it is
reformation only of what is amiss or defective in
the churches we came from.t This defines the
true position of our fathers : a position which
none will assail, but those who fancy that
"healing the sores must maim the body."

When Moses, descending from the mount,
found the catholic congregation of Israel turned
to idolatry, he "took the tabernacle, and pitched
it without the camp, afar off from the camp, and
called it the Tabernacle of the Congregation.'*
In this, be sure, he was not guilty of schism ; and
much less were our fathers, when going forth
on compulsion, unwilling exiles, they took the
tabernacle, made in all things* according to the
pattern showed them in the mount, and set it
up, far from the camp of idolatry, in this west-
ern wilderness. As the followers of Jesus, who,

* Remarkablea of Dr. I. Mather,
t Elijah's Mantle, p. 2.

VOL. I. 6

62 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

" that he might sanctify the people with his own
blood, suffered without the gate," their language
was ; — " Let us go forth unto him without the
camp, bearing his reproach ; for here have we
no continuing city, but we seek one to come."
Jesus was in his time a great reformer and Pu-
ritan, coming with his winnowing fan in his
hand, that he might thoroughly purge his floor :
and such schismatics as he and his apostles were
when cast out of the synagogues of Judea, even
such were our fathers when forcibly extruded
from the parish churches of England.

That they suffered this extrusion solely against
their will, and therefore were not accountable
for it, as being a misery they could not avoid, is
manifest from many proofs. It appears in that
celebrated and pathetic address sent by the first
Massachusetts emigrants while yet on board the
Arbella, " to the rest of their brethren in and of
the Church of England." "We are not of
those," say that noble band, "who dream of
perfection in this world ; yet we desire that you
would be pleased to take notice of the principals
and body of our company, as those who esteem
it our honor to call the Church of England, from
whence we rise, our dear mother, and cannot
part from our native country where she specially
resideth, without much sadness of heart, and

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 63

many tears in our eyes ; ever acknowledging
that such hope and part as we have obtained in
the common salvation, we have received in her
bosom, and sucked it from her breasts. We
leave it not, therefore, as loathing- that milk
wherewith we were nourished there ; but bless-
ing God for the parentage and education, as
members of the same body, shall always rejoice
in her good, and unfeignedly grieve for any sor-
row that shall ever betide her; and while we
have breath, sincerely desire and endeavor the
continuance and abundance of her welfare, with
the enlargement of her bounds in the kingdom
of Christ Jesus ; wishing our heads and hearts
were fountains of tears for your everlasting wel-
fare, when we shall be in our poor cottages in
the wilderness, overshadowed with the spirit of
supplication."^ So too, the year before, the
pious Higginson, the faithful pastor of Salem, in
taking his last look of his native land from the
stern of his ship, exclaimed ; — " We will not say
as the Separatists were wont to say at their
leaving of England, Farewell, Babylon ! Fare-
well, Rome ! But we will say. Farewell, dear
England ! Farewell, the Church of God in Eng-
land, and all the Christian friends there ! We

* Hubbard, Chapter XXIII.

64 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

do not go to New England as separatists from
the Church of England; though we cannot but
separate from the corruptions in it : but we go
to practice the positive part of church reforma-
tion, and propagate the gospel in America.'"^

Jonathan Mitchell, at whose untimely death
it was said, that " all New England shook when
that pillar fell to the ground," thus expressed the
matter in his sermon, called " Nehemiah upon
the Wall." Speaking against '* separation, ana-
baptism and anarchial confusion," he says; —
" If any would secretly twist in, and espouse
such things as those, and make them part of our
interest, we must needs renounce it as none of
our cause, no part of the end and design of the
Lord's faithful servants, when they followed him
" into this land that was not sown." Separation
and anabaptism, are wonted intruders, and seem-
ing friends, but secret fatal enemies, to reforma-
tion. Do not, on pretence of avoiding corruption,
run into sinful separation from any true churches
of God, and what is good therein. And yet it
is our errand into the wilderness to study and
practice true Scripture reformation ; and it will
be our crown in the sight of God and man, if we
find it and hold it, without adulterating devia-
tions."

* Magnalia, Book III., ch. I., Sec. 12.

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 65

Additional testimonies of the same character
will be given in another place. Such language
must fully exculpate such as used it from the
charge of making schismatical divisions, if it be
admitted that they uttered these expressions with
sincerity. We are too well aware, that some mean
and malignant writers, who were unable to con-
ceive it possible that men could entertain such
magnanimous sentiments as these, have ques-
tioned the sincerity of our fathers. The charac-
ter of our fathers, so bold to avow the truth, and
so resolute to suffer in its behalf, sufficiently
refutes the calumny. The most decided Con-
gregationalists among their descendants, whose
sincerity has never been questioned, read the
above cited declarations of Winthrop and his
associates with high approbation, and heartily
accord with the sentiments therein expressed.
The New England churches consider them-
selves to be purified branches of that original
church-stock which flourished in England, before
Romish art and violence had twisted it out of its
proper shape and form.

Surely it is the extremity of injustice to accuse
the Puritans as being of a schismatical temper.
They felt themselves, as we, their descendants,
and inheritors of their principles, now feel our-
selves to be, in full fellowship with all that is

66 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

good and all that is true in the communion of
the Church of England and in every other
Christian denomination. They and we are in-
separably joined to the whole church catholic
of faithful men, " endeavoring to keep the unity
of the Spirit in the bond of peace."

The multiplicity of sects is much deplored.
A sect, according to the derivation of the word,
is something which is " cut off." But in New
England, the "standing order," is no sect, no
cut-off. We are not dissected from others, even
though they be severed from us. We be the
main-stock, which remains rooted and grounded,
even when parted branches are torn away. We
are the mother-church, and so no flying off of
her children, can make us as any one of them.
Whatever other respected denominations and
beloved sister-churches may be, we are here, no
sect, — no cut-off; but the original vine of God's
planting in this land. We grow upon the an
cient trunk, "partaking of its root and fatness."
We be no innovators, no revolutionists, no disor-
ganizers. Our church polity, and scheme of
doctrine, is in rightful possession of all the
ground it holds.

Thus, if we insist upon the use of the Bible
in our common Schools, we set up no novel
claim. This country was settled by Bible

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 67

Christians, who spent life and treasure for the
purpose of making the Bible the basis of our
system of education, as well as of all the rest of
our social institutions. We are only on defensive
and conservative ground, and are only moving
on in the straightforward track of duty.

We have showed the necessity of Puritanism
in the days of our fathers, — the need of thorough
ecclesiastical reform in regard to the infringe-
ments and usurpal encroachments upon Christ's
kingly office in the government of the Church
he had purchased with his own blood. In this
point of view, they were the light of the world,
and shone serene, far above the troubled clouds,
which by snatches obscured their brightness
from the sight of men. •

Yes : the Puritan piety was needed in that
day. And no less is it needed now. The
words of one of those good men are as seasona^
ble as ever ; — " Babylon paints her face anew
at this day ; antichrist hath varnished his inter-
est, so that there are many who are allured and
taken with the beauty of that harlot." We have
also seen the truth of his further remark, that
" a loose protestant is fit to become a strict
papist.'"^ Human corruption is seeking as

* W. Sioughton, Election Sermon, 1668. p. 27.

68 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

busily as ever, to obscure the beaming simplicity
of the gospel ; spoiling its divine beauty " through
philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of
men, after the rudiments of the world, and not
after Christ." Alas for our Zion, once "the
perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth,"
alas for her, if that race of noble spirits shall be-
come extinct in such a day of rebuke and
blasphemy as this. " The fathers, — where are
they ? "

" O, they are fled the light ! Those mighty spirits
Lie raked up with their ashes in their urns;
And not a spark of their eternal fire,
Glows in a present bosom."

But no ; — the sacred flame is not quenched in
this land, which the prayers of our pilgrim sires
have hallowed, and made it holy ground.

" E'en in their ashes, live their wonted fires."

The latent heat pervades the soil, breathes geni-
ally in the air, and diffuses the life-warmth
through all our social state.

Our thoughts revert to those days of sorest
trial, when our fathers and mothers literally
" left all," to follow Christ into " a land not
sown." " Weep not for the dead, neither bemoan
him ; but weep sore for him that goeth away ;
for he shall return no more, nor see his native
country." What a scene the embarkation of

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 69

those sorrowing- companies of pilgrims must
have been. There were godly and reverend
ministers, disguised in shipman's garb, appre-
hensively watching, lest the pursuivant should
come to arrest their flight ; dreading to go, but
dreading more to be hindered from going.
There were men with anxious countenances,
hurrying the preparations for their tedious voy-
age ; — women, with care-worn features, and
looks of resignation, waiting the last signal in
silent agony : — children, poor things, who must
be borne far away, not knowing whither or why.
There were friends to be left behind, under the
sad presentiment of meeting no more on earth.
The tenderest ties were sundering, even such as
had never been severed before. Were there
ever sorrows or tears like those ? What impas-
sioned repetitions of terms of endearment, such
as excited afTection loves to utter, were mutually
breathed, till the voice became choked with emo-
tion, and they wept upon each other's necks till
they recovered speech again. Then comes the
breaking away from fond embraces, whose tender
pressure shall never again be felt ; — the brief
farewells, the ejaculated blessings, the affection-
ate charges, and messages of love to absent
friends. And now the last fast is cast off. The
vessel moves upon her billowy course. The

70 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

forms so tearfully watched, recede into fainter
view. But waving signals tell of the " longing,
lingering glances," which cannot bear the deep
desponding anguish of the last — last look.

0 love of Jesus ! how does it triumph in such
an hour of bitterest woe ! 0 the power of relig-
ion, which can constrain to a living martyrdom,
keen as the pangs of death, and torturing as the
cross ! Aye, how does it cheer the soul, not by
stupifying its sensibilities, but by lifting them
all torn and bleeding, to the view of a pitying
Saviour, and elevated in sublime devotion, re-
ceiving from his compassion, a rush of sympa-
thy, an overflowing consolation, a joy so full
of heaven, that earth and all its sorrows are
sweetly forgotten. Blessed wounds which bring
such healing ! Happy griefs w^hich teach such
comfort ! These scars of the heart are the love-
tokens of Christ, and the treasured pledges of a
home whose friendships are eternal, and where
parting is unknown.

Let us rally around the banner of our sires.
What recreant and caitive heart, what degener-
ate spirit would desert it now ? The pilgrims
bore it, like valiant standard-bearers, in the front
of the Lord's battle. There it has ever been
wont to fly, where the conflict raged strongest
against the powers of darkness. And still un-

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 71

torn and untarnished, it has often waved over
the field of its glorious triumphs. Though the
flag, in these stiller times, may hang drooping
from the lofty staff, yet, when iniquity cometh
in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord, as a rush-
ing, mighty wind, shall lift up the ancient stand-
ard. Then, in sure token of victory, it will
spread out its ample folds, with the broad blazon
of the bannered cross.

72 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

CHAPTER IV.

Mr. Cotton countenanced by the people in his non-conformity.
Suspension from ministry. Suspension unexpectedly tnken
off. Successful labors. Theological instructions. Indefatigable
preaching. Correspondence. Wonderful and general reforma-
tion. Archbishop Williams. Earls of Dorchester and Lyndsay.
Disabled by ague. Second marriage. Cited to High Com-
mission Court. Fate of the informer. Earl of Dorset intercedes W
for 3Ir. Cotton in vain. Concealment. Letter to I\Irs. Cotton.
Sets out to go to Holland. Diverted to Ixmdon. Interesting con-
ference with Mr. Davenport and others. Resolves to go to New
England. Embarks wiili dlLlJculiy in the Grithn.

When Mr. Cotton ceased from his conformity
with the exceptionable features in the national
worship, so great was his popularity with his
people, that, far from opposing him on that ac-
count, the greatest part of them sustained him
in his course. Thomas Leverett, however, one
of his parishioners,, with some others, prosecuted
complaints against their minister in the Episco-
pal courts ; till, after some time, he was silenced
by order of the bishop.

During his suspension, Mr. Cotton gave con-
stant attendance to the public preaching of his
substitute ; but never to the readinof of the Book

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 73

of Common Prayer. He was now subjected to
severe temptations to swerve from the path of
duty. He was not only promised, that he should
be restored to the freedom of his ministry, but
promoted to very great preferment in the church,
on condition of conformity to the scrupled rites,
only in a single instance. But he kept the in-
tegrity of his conscience undefiled, " unawed by
influence, and unbribed by gain." Meanwhile
a portentous cloud of troubles was gathering
over his head ; but was strangely dispersed
again. Mr. Leverett himself, the author of
these difficulties, became deeply penitent for
his agency in causing them. He went to one
of the proctors of the archi-episcopal court, to
whom he presented a pair of gloves, and then
made his appeal from the court below. Mr.
Leverett made oath before this officer, who
favored him in the terms of the deposition, that
" Mr. Cotton was a man conformable to the
mind of the Lord.'' On the strength of this
very ambiguous deposition, the silenced minis-
ter, he scarce knew how, found himself healed
of his ecclesiastical bronchitis, and restored to
the use of his voice in the pulpit. The same
Mr. Leverett ever after was his steadfast friend ;
and following his fortunes to this side of the
Atlantic, was for many years a useful elder in

VOL. I. 7

74 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

the first church in Boston, Mass. By the same
means, Mr. Bennet, another of his parishioners,
occasionally screened his minister from harass-
ing prosecutions.

After this affair, Mr. Cotton went on with his
sacked duties, uninterrupted for many years.
Making no efforts to build up a party or to gain
adherents, he laboriously devoted himself to
teaching the people the Christian religion.
During the twenty years that he retained his
charge, he thrice went over the whole body of
systematic divinity, with especial pains to in-
doctrinate the younger part of his flock. In his
preaching he largely expounded several of the
books of Scripture, in which gift he greatly ex-
celled.

As one instance of his power to awaken the
conscience, it is said that he once handled the
sixth commandment with such effect, that a
woman who had been married sixteen years to
her second husband, openly confessed to the
crime of poisoning her former husband. This
confession she made, though it exposed her to
be burned to death at the stake ; the barbarous
punishment then awarded to such an offence,
wliitli was regarded as " petty treason."

So great was Mr. Cotton's celebrity as an in-
structor, that his house was full of young students.

LTFK OF JOHN COTTON. 75

some of whom resorted to him from Holland,
and some from Germany. In those days, the
sons of the Puritans did not repair to the land
where too many of the learned, enveloped in
the fumes of their unquenchable pipes, " drink
beer and think beer," till their brains reek with
the noisome smoke of transcendental speculation.
The most of Mr. Cotton's pupils were from that
University where he had been trained ; for Dr.
Preston ever counseled his students who had
nearly completed the , prescribed course of stud-
ies, to perfect their preparation for public ser-
vices by a brief residence with the puritan
minister of Boston. It came to be a common
saying-, that " Mr. Cotton is Dr. Preston's
seasoning vessel."

His ministerial labors were abundant. In
addition to the ordinary duties of the Sabbath,
he preached statedly four times in the week,
viz., early each Wednesday and Thursday morn-
ing ; and again in the afternoons of Thursday
and Saturday. Moreover he frequently held
other occasional services, in which he often
spent six hours in prayer and preaching. When
we think of such immense labors sustained
through a long course of years, we are at a loss
which to admire most ; the indefatigable indus-
try of the teacher, or the insatiable eagerness of

76 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

the people for his instructions. In these degen-
erate days, such congregations are as rare as
such ministers. For several of the latter years
of his residence in that well cultured field, he
was assisted by a colleague. That was not the
era of superabounding periodicals and cheap
literature. The mass of the people then de-
pended on hearing, for mental aliment and ex-
citement, as much as now on reading.

Mr. Cotton's usefulness was further extended
by a large correspondence with those who
sought his aid for resolving obscure points of
doctrine, difficult texts of Scripture, or perplex-
ing cases of conscience. Besides this he was
considerably occupied every year in providing
for the spiritual wants of other congregations ;
and especially in his native place, where he
was held in the highest estimation.

The multiplied toils of this faithful servant
were not thrown away. The Spirit of the
Lord was with him. There was 'a surprising
reformation of manners in the community.
Profaneness was well nigh abolished. Hurtful
and superstitious practices were done away.
The great body of the people became decidedly
religious. As the phrase was, most of the
Satanicals had become Puritanicals. The
mayor, with the greater part of the magis-

LIFE OP JOHN COTTON. 77

trates, had embraced the truth. Many scores of
devout persons, without forming themselves into
a separate church, more fully perfected their
existing church-state by solemnly covenanting
with God and with each other, to follow the
Lord in the purity of his worship. The minis-
ter whose fidelity was thus rewarded, was the
admiration of his hearers ; " exceedingly be-
loved of the best, and admired and reverenced
of the worst." He was held in high respect by
some of the chief dignitaries both in Church and
State. It was noticed that the temporal pros-
perity of the town was much promoted by the
increased intelligence and good order which
pervaded the place in consequence of his activ-
ity. On his account it was much resorted to by
strangers, and " many gentlemen of good qual-
ity " made it their abode.

At this time, Mr. Cotton had a very able col-
league. Dr. Anthony Tuckney, afterwards Mas-
ter of St. John's College, Cambridge. While
he filled this latter office, he published a
" Briefe Exposition of Ecclesiastes," by Mr.
Cotton, a year or two subsequent to the latter's
decease. To this volume, printed at London in
1654, Dr. Tuckney prefixed a dedication, ad-
dressed to the mayor, with the aldermen and

other Christian friends, of Boston, in Lincoln-

7#

78 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

shire. The dedication presents a very happy
picture of his joint ministry with Mr. Cotton in
that favored place. " The large interest," says
Dr. Tuckney, " which I have long enjoyed in
your favor, and which you must ever have in
my heart, hath emboldened me to prefix your
names to this piece ; and with the more confi-
dence of its acceptance, because in it an address
is made to you at once by two who sometimes
were together your ministers in the gospel of
Christ : by the ever to be honored Mr. Cotton,
in the book, and by my unworthy self in the
review and dedication of it. Both of us are
now removed from you : the one, first to a
remote part of the world, there to plant church-
es,— and thence, after that happy work done, to
heaven : the other to some more publique ser-
vice nearer hand. I often call to mind those
most comfortable days, in which I enjoyed the
happiness of joint ministry with so able and
faithful a guide : and both of us so much satis-
faction and encouragement from a people so
united in the love both of the truth, and of one
another. I cannot read what Paul writeth of
his Thessalonians, (in the first chapters of both
his epistles to them,) but I think I read over
what we then found in Boston. They were
then very happy days with you, when your

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 79

faith (lid grow exceedingly, and your love to
Christ's ordinances, ministers, servants, and to
one another abounded. AUhough your town
be situated in a low country, yet God then
raised your esteem very high : and your emi-
nency in piety overtopped the height of your
steeple. Your name was as an ointment poured
out, and your renown went forth for that beauty
and comeliness, which God had put upon you."
How can we refrain from lamenting, that a
•Christian flock, so happily and profitably united
under the guidance of its beloved pastors, could
not escape the fury of religious tyranny ? Such
interference is impotent as to any good, but all -
powerRil for evil. There is evidence, that the
leaven of Mr. Cotton's piety long lingered in
that once favored place. Perhaps we have an
evidence that its influence is still, in some
measure, transmitted to the present inhabitants.
In this year, 1846, the mayor and aldermen of
that ancient corporation addressed a letter to
the civic authorities of Boston in New England.
This well written communication was sent with
the noble design of drawing closer the bonds of
amity between two countries which were appre-
hended to be in some danger of coming to hos-
tilities. In this friendly missive, the people of
the mother town do not fail to remind the trans-

80 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

atlantic daughter, that she is indebted to them of
old for their famous Mr. Cotton, and their more
famous name. From thence is drawn an argu-
ment for the peace of the nations to which these
cities respectively belong.

His learning, and his ability in putting it to
good use, made him a special favorite with
Archbishop Williams. And when that prelate
was bishop of Lincoln, and also Lord Keeper of
the Great Seal, being the last ecclesiastic who
held that office in England, he went to the im-
perious James I., and made so favorable a report
of Mr. Cotton's singular worth and learning, that
the king gave consent that his ministry should
not be interrupted on account of his non-con-
formity. And this was very remarkable, when
we consider that monarch's impetuosity and ex-
asperation against such as offended in that par-
ticular. The mystery of Mr. Cotton's impunity
was not known to Samuel Ward, of facetious
memory, the author of the " Simple Cobbler."
He remarked in his pleasant manner, " Of all
men in the world, I envy Mr. Cotton, of Boston,
most ; for he doth nothing by way of conform-
ity, and yet hath his liberty : and I do almost
every thing that way, and cannot enjoy mine."

The vicar of Boston was very much respected
by the earls of Dorchester and Lindsay. These

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. SI

noblemen being in the vicinity, attending to the
draining of some part of the Lincolnshire fens,
came to hear this noted preacher. His text
that day was Gal. 2 : 20 ; "I am crucified with
Christ," &c. ; and he was prepared to discourse
on the duty of living by faith in adversity. But
considering that these high and mighty lords
had never been very conversant with adversity,
he promptly reversed his subject, and expatiated
on the duty of living by faith in prosperity. It
is said, that they also heard him discourse on
civil government, and were greatly captivated
with the wisdom and spirit by which he spake.
They assured him of their friendship ; and
offered, if ever it should be needed, to exert all
their influence at the royal court in his behalf.
When these puissant nobles had occasioned
some scandal by indulging in diversions unsuit-
able to the Sabbath, they kindly accepted his
discreet admonitions, and promised reformation.
His faithful dealing is the more to be com-
mended, when we take into account the pro-
found veneration then felt for those who were so
favored in the accident of birth. We have heard
old countrymen, advanced in years, tell of the
awful respect in which nobility was held in
their young days : so that in attempting to
speak to a peer of the realm with his star upon

82 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

his breast, the tongue would cleave to the roof
of the mouth. ^ The French revolution seems
to have forever broken down this feeling of
overpowering veneration for aristocracy. We
look upon an anointed king with far less emo-
tion in these times, when reverence for mere
rank is rapidly passing away.

Toward the end of his residence in Boston,
Mr. Cotton was for a whole year disabled from
preaching, by a quartern ague, which began in
September, 1630. His physicians advising a
change of air, he removed to the mansion of the
earl of Lincoln, another of his noble friends,
whose Countess was a lady of eminent piety.
Among their children was the celebrated lady
Arbella Johnson, and also the lady Susan, wife
of John Humphrey, one of the assistants. Both
of these ladies settled, and the former died, in
this colony of Massachusetts. In the hospitable
dwelling of their parents, Mr. Cotton recovered
his health : but lost his estimable wife by the
same disease, after a happy and religious union
of eighteen years. About a year after, he mar-

♦ It is said, that a young lady from the country being ushered into
the dread presence i>f S;irali, Duchess of Marllwroui,'!!, lost all her self-
possession, and falling upon her knees, mechanically recited her cus-
tomary grace at meals : " Lord, make ua suitably thankful for what
we arc about to receive ! "

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 83

ried an estimable widow, Mrs. Sarah Story,
who was an endeared friend of his former wife.
Good Mr. Norton, speaking of these grave and
godly matrons, compares them with Euodias
and Syntyche, " which labored with Paul in
the gospel."

Not long after his second marriage, the tem-
pest, which had been delayed for so many
years, broke forth. There was in the town a
dissipated character, Gawain Johnson by name,
whose irregularities had brought him under the
notice of the correctional police. Resolved to be
revenged upon the magistrates by whom he had
been punished, he went up to London, and filed
an information against them in that infamous
tribunal, the High Commission Court. This
body was styled the " High Commissioners for
Causes Ecclesiastical : " and was first set up by
Queen Elizabeth in 1.559. It was composed of
bishops, privy counselors, officers of state, law-
yers, deans, and the like, to the number of forty
or more ; three of whom, usually with a bishop,
or other dignitary, at their head, were vested
with full power to inquire into and punish all
opinions or practices different from those of the
established Church. All such cases they could
try, either with or without a jury, the whole
supremacy and despotism of the monarch being

84 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

committed into their hands by royal commission.
Persons informed against by letter only were
cited before them ; and in trying them, no re-
gard was had to the statute laws of the realm.
The accused were tossed about in the vast,
stormy jjnd most uncertain gulf of the common
law ; where shipwreck was almost inevitable.
The most odious of the proceedings in that
court, in which witnesses were not openly ex-
amined, was the oath ex officio ; — an oath by
which the prisoner was required to^answer any
question which should be put to him, no matter
how deeply the answer might injure him. If he
refused to swear, he was severely punished for
contempt of court ; if he answered, he was con-
victed on his own confession. This outrage
was systematically committed against every
principle of law and justice, requiring that no
man shall be compelled to criminate himself.
Hume has justly denounced the High Commis-
sion as a " real Inquisition ; attended with sim-
ilar iniquities and cruelties.'"^ Dr. Lingard,
himself a Romanist, says : *' The chief differ-
ence consisted in their names. One was the
court of Inquisition, the other of High Commis-
sion." t This tribunal, while it lasted, was in

* Eliz., chap. xli.

t History of England, vol. v., chap. vi.

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 85

truth a very efficient substitute for the Inquisi-
tion, which Du Plessis Mornay energetically
called, " that hell of the papacy."

The charge made at the office of this in-
famous court against the Boston magistrates,
was for not kneeling at the sacrament, and for
neglecting some other ceremonies of the like
importance. The officers of the court required
that the minister's name should be inserted.
" Nay," said the informer, Johnson, " the min-
ister is an honest man, and never did me any
wrong." But being told that his complaint
would be thrown out unless it included the
name of the minister who permitted the alledged
irregularities, the miserable man, rather than
lose his revenge, inserted the name of one who
had never injured him. Upon this, letters mis-
sive were forthwith despatched to bring ]\Ir.
Cotton before that dreaded bar.

The Rev. John Rogers of Dedham, in Eng-
land, one of the sons of that Marian martyr who
used to be figured in the rude wood -cuts of the
New England Primer, was informed of the
accusation entered against Mr. Cotton. Mr.
Rogers received the sorrowful tidings just as
he was going to preach his weekly lecture. In
his discourse he deeply lamented the occur-
rence, and broke out, with a sort of prophetic

VOL. L 8

86 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

fire, in words to this effect : — " As for that man
who hath caused a faithful pastor to be driven
from his flock, he is a wisp used by the hand
of God for the scouring of his people. But
mark the words now spoken by a minister of
the Lord ! I am verily persuaded, that the
judgments of God will overtake the man that
hath done this thing ; either he will die under a
hedge, or something else, more than the ordi-
nary deaih of men, shall befall him." Those
old men of God did not hesitate to venture a
prediction of this kind; for they had full often
witnessed the wretched end of such characters ;

"And old experience doth attain,
To something like prophetic strain."

and it came accordingly to pass, that this sorry
informer, very shortly after, died of the plague
under a hedge in Yorkshire. Through fear of
contagion, he perished alone, and was left long
unburied. Our fathers, who were exceedingly
inquisitive and trustful in such matters, did not
fail to recognize in this event an evident divine
retribution from the hand of Him, who, as the
Psalmist saith, "hath bent his bow, and made
it ready, — who ordaineth his arrows against ihe
persecutors."

Good Mr. Whiting, " the angel of the church
in Lynn," where he was the first pastor, was

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 87

himself a native of • old Boston. He wrote a
biographical sketch of Mr. Cotton, which was
the basis of John Norton's more extended
memoir, on which latter work Cotton Mather
enlarged considerably. To the facts related in
Mather's very valuable account, the present
narrative makes very great additions collected
from every available source. This Mr. Whiting,
speaking of John Cotton's enemies, who secretly
plotted, or openly acted, against him in old
Boston, remarks : — " They all of them were
blasted, either in their names, or in their estates,
or in their families, or in their devices, or else
came to untimely deaths ; which shows how
God hath owned his servant in his holy labors ;
and that in the things wherein they dealt proudly
against him, he would be above them." Doubt-
less, the avenging providence of God is not to
be rashly scrutinized. We cannot be too cau-
tious in the interpretation of such matters.
And yet a broad induction of facts will justify
the solemn conclusion, that " verily there is a
God that judgeth in the earth." His people
are his charge. " Yea, he hath reproved kings
for their sakes ; saying. Touch not mine anoint-
ed, and do my prophets "no harm."

Mr. Cotton, warned that letters missive were
issued against him, concealed himself from the

88 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

easier search of the pursuivants by flight. He
was aware that, if apprehended, he had nothing
better to expect than to pine in perpetual impris-
onment, in which so many of his brethren had
worn out their shortened days. During his
concealment, his potent friend, the Earl of Dor-
chester, or as more commonly called, Dorset,
who was a thorough courtier, lord chamberlain
to the queen, and far enough from being a
Puritan, exerted all his influence in the case.
But that grinding and remorseless oppressor,
Laud, who, about this time, was made archbish-
op of Canterbury, and who on the very day that
he became primate and metropolitan of all Eng-
land, received, by a significant coincidence, the
ofler of a cardinal's hat from Rome, was inexor-
able. That bitter prelate would often exclaim :
" 0 that I could meet with Cotton ! " The
noble earl, perceiving that all his intercessions
must be unavailing, wrote to the irreproachable
fugitive, that " if he had been guilty of drunk-,
enness, or unclean ness, or any such lesser fault,
he could have obtained his* pardon ; but inas-
much as he had been guilty of non-conformity
and puritanism, the crime was unpardonable; "
and ended with advising him to fly for his safety.
It is not surprising, after this sample of their
quality, that Mr. Cotton should long after say :

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 89

" The ecclesiastical courts are like the courts
of the high priests and pharisees, which Solo-
mon, by a spirit of prophecy stileth, dens of
lions and mountains of leopards. And those
who have to do with them, have found them
markets of the sins of the people, the cages of
uncleanness, the forges of extortion, the taberna-
cles of bribery."

There is extant a letter, dated October 3,
1632, written by Mr. Cotton while under con-
cealment, to the lady he had but lately married.
It is here inserted as presenting a confidential
expression of his feelings at the time.

Dear &c. If our heavenly Father be pleas'd
to make our Yoke more heavy than we did so
soon expect, remember I pray thee what we
have heard, that our heavenly Husband the
Lord Jesus, when he 1st called us to Fellow-
ship with himself, called us unto this Condition,
to deny ourselves, and to take up our Cross
daily, to follow him. And truly, tho' this Cup
be brackish at the first; yet a Cup of God's ming-
ling is doubtless sweet in the Bottom, to such
as have learned to make it their greatest Happi-
ness to partake with Christ, as in his Glory, so
in the Way that leadeth to it. Where I am
for the present, I am very fitly and welcomely
8#

90 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

accommodated, I thank God : so as I see here I
might rest desired enough till my Friends at
Home shall direct further. They desire also to
see thee here, but that I think it not safe yet,
till we see how God will deal with our Neigh-
bours at Home : for if you should now travel
this Way, I fear you will be watched and dogged
at the Heels. But I hope shortly God will
make Way for thy safe Coming. The Lord
watch over you all for Good, and reveal him-
self in the Guidance of all our Affairs. So with
my Love to thee, as myself, I rest ; desirous of
thy Rest and Peace in him. J. C.

This letter, written under such circumstances
of painful separation, imminent peril, and un-
certainty for the future, betrays no petulant
impatience or unmanly repinings. It beautifully
portrays the sublime peacefulness of the mind,
which, in the hour of adversity, is stayed on
God. Within six weeks from the writing of the
above letter, this pious couple was again united,
though obliged still to live in concealment.

After earnest prayer for divine direction, and
much consultation with good men upon the sub-
ject, Mr. Cotton concluded to seek refuge in
Holland, whither so many of the Puritan minis-
ters and people had already fled from the vio-

LIFE OP JOHN COTTON. 91

lence of persecution. Some of his Boston
friends urged him to permit them to sustain and
protect him, that they might privately enjoy the
benefit of his ministry, without which they must
be exposed to great temptation. But the vener-
able Mr. Dod, an old Puritan famous for his
piety and his wit, told them, " that the removing
of a minister was like the draining of a fish-
pond : the good fish will follow the water ; but
eels, and other refuse fish, will stick in the
mud."

That there were in the pond some good fish,
with life enough to follow the water, appears
from Mr. Cotton's book on the " Holinesse of
Church-Members," printed many years after in
1650. It is dedicated " to my honored, wor-
shipful and worthy friends, the Mayor and Jus-
tices, the Aldermen and Common Council,
together with the w^hole Congregation and
Church at Boston." Speaking of old times
with them, he says ; — " And ye became follow-
ers of us, and of the Lord ; and showed your-
selves ensamples in some first fruits of reform-
ation, unto many neighbor congregations about
you : 1 Thess. 1 . 6, 7. And though you saw,
that any small measure of reformation, (which
then was offensive to the State, and suffered
under the name of Non-Conformity,) would

92 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

expose yourselves to some sufferings, unless you
deserted me, yet I bear you record, you chose
rather to expose yourselves to charge and hazard
for many years together, than to expose my
ministry to silence. And though, at last, in
that hour and power of darkness, when the late
High Commission began to stretch forth their
malignant arm against ns, I was forced to depart
secretly from you, (from some of you, I say,)
howbeit, not without the privity and consent of
the chief, yet sundry of you yielded up your-
selves, as Ittai to David, to follow the Lord
whithersoever he should call ; and to go along
with me, whether to life or death, in this late
howling wilderness. And though, after my de-
parture, you were^somewhat carried aside with
the torrent of the times, yet, I believe, not with-
out some apprehension of the light of the word
going before you, in your judgments, to the sat-
isfaction of your own consciences. And ever
since that time, wherein the strong hand of the
Lord, and the maglignancy of the times, had set
this vast distance of place, and great gulf of seas,
between us ; yet still you claimed an interest in
me, and have yearly ministered some real testi-
mony of your love. And at last, when the
Lord, of his rich grace, had dispelled the storm
of malignant church-government, you invited

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 93

me again and again, to return unto the place and
work wherein I had walked before the Lord and
you in former times. But the estate of those
of you who came along with me, and who there-
by had most interest in me, could not bear that.
Nor would my relation to the church here suffer
it. Nor would my age, now stricken in years,
nor infirm body, ill-brooking the seas, be able to
undergo it, without extreme peril of becoming
unserviceable either to yourselves or others."

From this document we learn several things,
which might not otherwise have come to our
knowledge. It appears, that the affections of
his old flock clung to their banished minister :
and that, through some twenty years of absence,
they annually sent him substantial tokens of
their anxiety to promote his comfort. We find
too, that when the execution of William Laud
and Charles Stuart had removed the bar to his
return, they sent him such reiterated and urgent
calls as could be declined only for the most im-
perative reasons.

To these reasons there is another to be added.
While the Long Parliament was at the height
of its power, before Cromwell had dosed it with
his " purging colonels," the presbyterial form of
government was imposed by law on the parishes
of England. Presbyterianism, at that time, ad-

94 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

milled persons confessedly unregenerate to the
Lord's table. In reference to this, Mr. Cotton
told his importunate friends ; — " The estate of
your church, admitting more than professed
saints to the fellowship of the seals, and the
government of your church subjected to an ex-
trinsical ecclesiastical power, would have been
perpetual scruples and torments to my con-
science, which, knowing the terrors of the Lord,
and the conviction of my own judgment, I durst
not venture upon." To this he adds, in his
charitable, unreproaching manner ; — " Not that I
misjudge others who can satisfy their conscien-
ces in a larger latitude : but because every man
is to be fully persuaded in his own mind, and I
must live by my own faith. Rom. 14 : 5."

Mr. Cotton did not lay down his pastoral
charge in any summary or informal manner.
He first obtained the consent of his people, so
far as it was possible to consult them on the
subject. " On this point," he says, " I conferred
with the chief of our people, and offered them to
bear witness to the truth I had preached and
practiced amongst them, even unto bonds, if they
conceived it might be any confirmation to their
faith and patience. But they dissuaded me
from thai course, and thinking it better for them-
selves, and for me, and for the Church of God,

LIFE OP JO h"n cotton. 95

to withdraw myself from the present storm, and
to minister in this country [New England,
whence this letter was written] to such of their
town as they had sent before hither, and such
others as were willing to go along with me, or
to follow after me.'"^

Governor Hutchinson has preserved for us a
letter! to Dr. Williams, Bishop of Lincoln, writ-
ten by Mr. Cotton, a few weeks before sailing
for America, for the purpose of resigning his
vicarage into the prelate's hands. Dr. Williams
had showed him all the indulgence he could, till
Laud compelled the reluctant prelate to resort to
rigorous measures. Mr. Cotton gratefully ac-
knowledges the diocesan's kindness, gives a
short account of the drift of his ministry at Bos-
ton, and assigns the reasons of his departure in
a manner the most meek and respectful, and yet
happily blended with a high principled firmness
and religious independence. This communica-
tion breathes the deepest solicitude for the wel-
fare of the flock from which he was torn away.

Being thus fully released from all obligation
of duty to his recent charge, he took measures

* See letter, dated Dec. 3, 16:34, in Hutchinson's Original Papers,
page 56.
t Original Papers, p. 249, &c. The letter is dated May 7 : 1633.

96 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

to effect his escape from his native shores. To
shun the officers who were on the watch for his
apprehension, he traveled under an assumed
name and a change of garb, toward the port
where he expected to embark for Holland. But
when he had nearly reached the place, he w^as
met by one of his relatives, who, by dint of per-
suasion and entreaty, induced him to betake
himself to London.

There were then in that city three pious min-
isters who considered the imposed ceremonies
as things in themselves of little consequence,
and as such submitted to them. One of these
was Dr. Goodwin, a clergyman of great distinc-
tion, and afterwards one of the leading divines
in the renowned Westminster Assembly. The
cynical Anthony Wood styles him and Dr. Ow-
en, " the two Atlasses and Patriarchs of Inde-
pendency." Another of the three alluded to was
Mr. Thomas Nye, in high repute for learning.
The other was John Davenport, the founder of
the New Haven colony, and one of the " chief
fathers" of New England. These gentlemen
embraced the opportunity of holding a confer-
ence with Mr. Cotton. Knowing him to be an
exceedingly dispassionate and judicious man,
they made no doubt but that they should con-
vince him, that it was his duty to conform

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 97

rather than to leave his country and his flock.
At this conference he first confuted all the ar-
guments they could array to justify their con-
formity ! and then vindicated his own course in
choosing to undergo so great privations, rather
than to defile his conscience by acquiescing in
customs which derogated from the kingly office
of the great Head of the Church. As the result
of these discussions, these three able champions
came entirely over to Mr, Cotton's views. Nor
does this detract at all from their just reputation,
but rather enhances it. " For he that is over-
come of the truth parteth victory with him that
overcometh, and hath the best share for his own
part." These men belonged to that class of
which good Fuller says, that " they count them-
selves the greatest conquerors, when the truth
hath taken them captive." The three, not long
after, themselves became exiles for the truth to
which they had honorably yielded."^ After Mr.
Cotton's death, Mr. Davenport gave a glowing
account of this interesting debate, in which, he

* This Dr. Goodwin lay wind-bound, in hourly expectation that the
pursuivants would seize him before the wind would favor his escape
lo Holland. Distressed as he was for a more propitious gale, he
cried, " Lord, if thou hast at this time any poor servant of thine who
wants this wind more than I do another, I do not ask for the chang*
ingofit: I submit unto it . The wind soon came about, and carried
him clear from his pursuers.

VOL. I. 9

98 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

says, Mr. Cotton " answered with great evi-
dence of Scripture light, composedness of mind,
mildness of spirit, constant adhering to his prin-
ciples, and keeping them unshaken." The trio
of friends in this amicable contention were struck
with admiration at his might in the Scriptures,
his vast and various reading, his prompt memo-
ry, his ready reply, and his government of his
own spirit, far beyond what they had " taken
notice of in any man before him." Mr. Daven-
port closes by saying; — "The reason of our
desire to confer with him rather than any other
touching these weighty points, was our former
knowledge of his approved godliness, excellent
learning, sound judgment, eminent gravity,
candor and sweet temper of spirit, whereby he
could placidly bear those that differed from him
in their apprehensions. All which, and much
more we found ; and glorified God, in him, and
for him." This description explains the secret
of Mr. Cotton's uncommon success as a debater,
and as a resolver of the doubtful and difficult
questions in his casuistry which were constantly
submitted to him for solution. Truly, these
men who are so firmly tenacious of their opin-
ions, and yet thus maintain them in the spirit of
love and the meekness of wisdom, are usually
the most invincible and irresirstible in debate.

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 99

In John Cotton's " Covenant of Grace," a
book written long after this, in America, of
which several editions were printed, there is, in
that of 1655, an Addr'ess to the reader, by Rev.
Thomas Allen, minister of St. Edward's, Nor-
wich, Eng., who a few years before had been
teacher of the church in Charlestown, Mass.
The addresser says of the author : "He was a
man of peace, of a very sweet spirit, and had a
very special faculty of composing differences in
the iudo-ments of the brethren. And thus much
I shall crave liberty to testify of him, that, be-
sides the multiplicity of occasions which was
constantly upon him, he was not without care
about the peace and welfare of the churches
abroad ; and notwithstanding his so vast a dis-
tance in body from the churches and saints in
his native country, yet he had great thoughts in
heart for the division of his brethren here, being
seriously studious how to compose and heal
their breaches. He hath sometimes said unto
me, being privately together ; — ' Brother, I per-
ceive there is a great gravamen which the one
party is much offended at with the other. I
pray let us study how we may ease and remove
it.' "

Mr. Whiting gives him this character as a
disputant : — " He was of admirable candor, of

100 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

unparalleled meekness, of rare wisdom, very
loving even to those that differed in judgment
from him, yet one that held his own stoutly,
tightly maintaining and keenly defending what
himself judged to be the truth." Beware of
such men, unless you be willing to accord with
them.

It is worth mentioning here, that among the
auditors in that London conference, was Rev.
Henry Whitfield, rector of Oakley in Surrey,
who from that time became a conscientious non-
conformist, and was afterwards the founder of
the town and church of Guilford, in the New
Haven colony.

While secreted at London, by Mr. Davenport
and other ministers, Mr. Cotton gave up the
design of proceeding to Holland. He w^as dis-
couraged from betaking himself to that country,
for the same reasons which induced Mr. Robin-
son's Leyden flock to leave it for America.
Letters from Governor Winthrop, and from the
infant church in our own Boston, decided him
to shun the fires of persecution by braving the
waters of the ocean, then much more formi-
dable to the voyager than now.

It was about the middle of July, 1633, when
Mr. Cotton, with Thomas Hooker and Samuel
Stone, two ministers of great note, and with a

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 101

number of his old Boston parishioners, com-
menced his adventurous voyage. They sailed
in a vessel called the Griffin, the name of a
fabled creature, partly eagle and partly lion.
It was a ship of three hundred tons, having at
this time about two hundred passengers, of
whom four died while on the way.

Mr. Cotton and Mr. Hooker experienced
much difficulty in getting out of England ; for
long search had been made for them by the
emissaries of that odious instrument of all sorts
of tyranny, the High Commission Court. All
the ports were waylaid for their apprehension ;
and at the Isle of Wight, where it was expected
that the Griffin would have made her last stop-
page, she was strictly searched by the pur-
suivants. But the staunch ship afterwards, by
private agreement, lay off the Downs ; and, grif-
fin-like, with lion heart and eagle wings, swoop-
ed upon the prey, and bore it in triumph from
the disappointed hunters.

But oh, the sadness of that hour ! when the
hapless exiles, relieved at last from the haunt-
ing fear of capture, felt all their love of home
rise in the strength of that mastering passion.
Forgetting the bitterness of their lot, and re-
gardless of the hardships of the future, they

wept their last farewell to parted friends, and to
9#

102 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

the native land they should see no more. Nat-
ural affection was strong ; but gracious affection
was stronger. The love of Christ constrained
them. God counted their bitter tears ; and they
have found them each a pearl in heaven. " And
Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you,
there is no man that hath left house, or breth-
ren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or
children, or lands, for my sake and the gospel's,
but he shall receive an hundred-fold now in this
time, houses, and brethren and sisters, and
mothers, and children, and lands, with persecu-
tions ; and in the world to come, eternal life."

We almost envy our fathers for their distress-
ing opportunity of evincing the strength, sin-
cerity and purity of their love to Jesus, before
they went to meet him joyfully at his judgment-
seat. And is there no way, in which the ten-
derness and constancy of our love may be put
to decisive proof ? Can we do nothing to show
that our hearts arc wholly given to the Lord ?
Aye, by crucifying our bosom-sins, by pure and
holy living, by unremitted efforts for the salva-
tion of men, by our utmost exertions to promote
the Church's grand mission work of the world's
conversion, by ceaseless sacrifices joyfully made
in the holy cause of benevolence, — by these, we
too may prove that Jesus has full possession of

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 103

our souls. Thus may we make it manifest,
that, in blood and in spirit, we are the sons of
the pilgrims. This shall argue for us, that we
are ready, if persecution should arise, to suffer
what our fathers endured : — that we are ready to
walk, like them, with firm, unfaltering step,
through pains and perils for conscience' sake :
that we are ready to follow on, through despoil-
ment, exile, bonds and death, to the celestial
throne, and the crown eternal.

104 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

CHAPTER V.

Voyage lo America. Birth of Seaborn Cotton. Arrival at Bostorj.
Small beginnings. Interest felt in Mr. Cotton's coming. Admi*-
slon to the church. Installation. Laying on of hands, why used.
Distinction between the oflices of pastor and teacher. Not two
orders in the ministry, but ditferent employments of the same
order. " God's promise lo his Plantations." Mr. Cotton's ser-
vices in giving form and order to ecclesiastical aind civil affairs.
Utility of order.

It was about the middle of July, in 1633, when
Mr. Cotton commenced his voyage. Both he
and Mr. Hooker preserved their disguise, till
they were so far over the main ocean, that they
could safely disclose who they were. Mr.
Stone, who was much the youngest, and f^r
whom the search was not so furious, performed
all the public religious duties of the ship's com-
pany, till his companions could resume their
character as preachers, and officiate in their
turns.

This was a richly freighted ship, bearing a
large part of the fortune of New England. Our
pun-loving ancestors observed, at her coming,
that God had supplied them with three neces-

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 106

sary commodities : " Cotton for their clothing-,
Hooker for their fishing, and Stone for their
building." During the voyage, they usually
had three services every day ; which was, per-
haps, the first example of a " protracted meet-
ing." When they had been a month at sea,
Mr. Cotton, whose first wife died childless,
became a father. This, his eldest child, re-
ceived the name Seaborn, in commemoration of
the mercies attending his birth. Seaborn Cot-
ton lived to be a highly useful and honored
minister of the gospel. There were other chil-
dren born on the same passage. At the end of
seven weeks, which was then regarded as a re-
markably expeditious and prosperous voyage,
they landed at what is now the good old city of
Boston, on the third day of September, 1633.

This place had then been settled three years.
Governor Dudley says, that the first settlers,
previous to their coming hither, had already
determined to name the place they should fix
upon after the scene of Mr. Cotton's pastoral
labors, and in compliment to him, with the hope
that it might be some little inducement to him to
come there himself. The compliment, however,
at the time, was not so very flattering. For so
forlorn and unimposing was this little out-of-the-
way settlement, that our fathers, who delighted

106 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

in puns, anagrams, alliterations, and other
modes of playing wpon words, used rather
familiarly to call it Lost-town. .Let them be
excused, if, by such pleasantries, they some-
times sought to alleviate the discomforts of their
lot. The place soon began to wear a more cheer-
ing aspect ; and flourished more and more, till
it far exceeded in importance the parent-town
whose name it inherited. Our elder writers
ascribe much of its early prosperity to the wis-
dom, conduct and credit of Mr. Cotton; who
seems to have had something of the talent of
the Athenian statesman, who, when laughed at
because he had no skill to touch the lute„
retorted that he knew not how to fiddle ; but he
knew how to raise a small city into a powerful
state. In New England, " a little one became
a thousand, a small one a strong nation."

Just before his arrival, the people had been
holding a special season of fasting and prayer,
urging their covenant with God as a reason
why he should send them a spiritual guide, to
be unto them, like Hobab to the tribes of Israel,
" as eyes in the wilderness." Their supplica-
tions were answered in the gift of this " able
minister of the New Testament." Mr. Cotton
was then about forty-eight years of age, and
ripe in wisdom, knowledge, experience and

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 107

grace. At his coming, his services were called
for in different directions. His great capacities
for usefulness were considered to be the com-
mon property of the whole colony ; and it was
at first proposed, that his support should be pro-
vided for from the colonial treasury, in consid-
eration of the public benefit expected to accrue
from his labors. This motion however, was,
very properly, overruled. The magistrates and
other leading men decided, that this great light
must be set in the chief candlestick ; and,
within a fortnight, designated him to be Teacher
of the First Church in Boston, of which the Rev.
John Wilson was then Pastor,

Mr. Cotton was first to be admitted to the
church. This was an interesting scene. There
was a stated religious service held on the Sat-
urday evenings. At the first of these meetings
after his landing, he, by request, took part in
the discussion of the question, which, on that
occasion, happened to be in reference to the
-church. He expatiated upon the diversities in
the spiritual state and grades of purity of difler-
€nt churches. He showed from the Song of
Solomon 6 : 8, that some churches are as queens,
some as concubines, and some as virgins. After
this, he and his wife were propounded for ad-
mission.

lOS LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

On the Lord's day following, he conducted
the exercises of public worship in the afternoon.
He then expressed his desire to make a confes-
sion of his faith, according to usage. His con-
fession related chiefly to the subject of baptism,
which he then desired for his child. He gave
his reasons for not baptizing it while at sea ;
from which it appears, that he then held that
the sacraments can only be administered in a
settled congregation, or organized church ; and
also, that a minister, notwithstanding his official
character, can dispense the seals only in his
own congregation. On this last point, at least,
he afterwards changed his views so far as to
maintain that a minister micfht ff'ive the sacra-
ments in a church which is destitute of the
proper officers.

Mr. Cotton next requested the admission of
his wife, to whose qualifications for membership
he bore "a modest testimony." He craved that
she might be excused from making a public
oral profession of her faith, as was then the cus-
tom of the church. He regarded the practice as
' unfit for women's modesty," and contrary to
the apostle's rule. To her examination in pri-
vate by the elders, he had no objections. So she
was asked, whether she consented to the con-
fession of faith made by her husband, and con-

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 109

curred in his desire for admission. Upon her
answering in the affirmative, they were both
admitted by vote of the church. Their child
was then baptized by Mr. Wilson, the father
himself presenting it. At the baptism of an-
other child, which took place at the same time,
he gave it as a reason for disusing the unscript-
ural and unnatural custom of employing spon-
sors, that the ordinance was designed as the
" parents' incentive for the help of their faith."

A month afterwards, October 10, 1633, a day
of fasting was observed. Thomas Leverett,
" an ancient, sincere professor," an old parish-
ioner of Mr. Cotton, and his fellow-voyager to
this country, was chosen ruling elder ; and Mr.
Firmin, " a godly man," was elected deacon.
These officers were ordained by imposition of
the hands of the presbytery : that is to say, the
pastor, and such ruling elders as were pre-
viously in office. The pastor and other officers
of each particular church constituted the presby-
tery of that church ; and in this sense alone can
the term Presbyterian apply to our Congrega-
tional Churches.

This business being over, Mr. Cotton was

then publicly chosen by the Church to be their

Teacher, which was made manifest by the

members' lifting up their hands. Next, the

VOL. I. 10

110 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

pastor, Wilson, demanded of him whether he
accepted that call. After a pause, he replied to
the effect, that he knew "his unworthiness and
insufficiency for the place ; yet, recounting the
particular passages of God's providence which
concurred to call him to it, he felt himself con-
strained in duty to accept it. Upon this, the
pastor and two ruling elders laid their hands
upon his head, and the pastor prayed. Then,
removing their hands, they again placed them
on his head ; and calling him by name, from
thenceforth separated him to the said office in
the name of the Holy Ghost, laid upon him the
charge of the congregation, and in this signifi-
cant manner indued him with all the privileges
of his station. Last of all, they formally
blessed him. The presbytery of the church
having thus completed its part in this interest-
ing ceremony, the ministers of the neighboring
churches there present gave him, at the pastor's
request, the right hand of fellowship. The pas-
tor finally made a mutual stipulation between
the church and its newly inducted teacher.

In respect to the solemn imposition of hands,
just spoken of, or ordination as it is often termed,
we must observe that it does not follow of course,
that Mr. Cotton renounced the ministry he had
formerly received in the Church of England.

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. Ill

This may seem to be the natural supposition.
But it must be borne in mind, that when, three
years before, Mr. Wilson was constituted teacher
of the same church, it was done in a similar man-
ner ; but with a protestando, that it was no reor-
dination, as we now understand the term. These
are the words of Governor Winthrop, who as-
sisted on that occasion : " We used imposition
of hands, hut with this protestation by all, that
it was only as a sign of election and confirma-
tion, not of any intent that Mr. Wilson should
renounce his ministry he received in England." '^
This is sufficiently explicit. And when the same
Mr. Wilson, about one year prior to Mr. Cot-
ton's arrival, was made pastor of the same
church in which he had been thus constituted
teacher, this too was done by the laying on of
the hands of the ruling elder and the deacons.
Of course, in this case, no protestation was
needed, for it is impossible to suppose that the
Church would nullify its own previous ordi-
nance. Nor was any express protestation neces-
sary in Mr. Cotton's case ; for it had already
been established, by the precedent in Mr. Wil-
son's instance, that no renunciation of his pre-
vious ministerial authority was intended.

* Winthrop's History of New England, vol. 1, p. 32, 33, Savage's
edition.

112 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

The first installation in New England in
which the laying on of hands was omitted, was
that of Kev. Charles Morton, settled over the
First Church in Charlestown, the 5th of No-
vember, 16S6. ]\lr. Morton thus alludes to the
subject in a letter written some three years after
to the right honorable Hugh Boscawen, Esq., in
England : " Though their custom has been a
new imposition of hands upon every new call to
the exercise of the ministry, yet to us, who
came from Europe, Mr. Bailey"^ and myself, it
was abated. And for aught I can perceive, they
mind more the substance of religion, than the
circiimstances oi some men's private opinions."!
Dr. Increase Mather gave the charge, " and
spoke in praise of the Congregational way, and
said. Were he as Mr. Morton, he would have
hands laid on him." Rev. Joshua Moodey 1:
also, in his prayer, alluded to the subject, and
intimated, that •' that which would have been
grateful to many, namely, laying on of hands,
was omitted." <$> From that time, the precedent

* Installed October 6, 1686, in Waterlown, Mass ; afterwards
pastor of the First Church in Boston.

t This letter ia transcribed in part into a very admirable work by
Samuel Mather, D. D., called " An Apology for the Liberties of the
Churches in Now England." Boston, 1733, p. 148.

1 Pastor of the First Church in Boston,

§ Budington's History of the First Church in Charlestown, p. 102,
103.

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 113

set by Mr. Morton, in the case of resettling
ministers who had been previously ordained,
was followed more and more, till it became the
constant practice. Previous to this change,
ministers, in the intervals between one pastoral
care and another, were regarded as they are
now. They were spoken of, and treated as
ministers, and exercised their function as occa-
sion required. Reimposition, when used, was
not intended to restore the ministerial charac-
ter, as though that had been lost ; but to desig-
nate the person to a special charge.

Our fathers neither regarded imposition of
hands as an act that could not be repeated, nor
as essential to the validity of an ordination.
Theodore Beza, Calvin's famous successor at
Geneva, never received it ; and, under John
Knox's influence, it was for some time disused
in Scotland. It was not an act that could not be
repeated. They viewed it simply as a solemn
designation of the individual to a particular
office or dut}^ in the church, and as a sign of
investiture. They held, that every true minis-
ter must, in the first place, be inwardly called to
the work by the Spirit of God, as Aaron was ;
and then he must be outwardly called by some
church of Christ. They held that this power
of external vocation, \yhich belongs to the
10*^

114 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

church, is far superior to ordination, which, in-
deed, is included in it, as the less is included in
the greater. The church being able to give a
lawful calling to a minister, is much more able
to carry that call into effect by the simple cere-
mony used for that purpose by the brethren in
the apostles' time. Hence they maintained the
validity of what is sometimes called lay-ordina-
tion ; but which they, regarding it as the act of
the whole body of the church, the original
source of all spiritual power, considered as hav-
ing in it more of ecclesiastical authority than if
performed only by some of its officers acting by
delegated powers. Accordingly, in some very
few instances, the ceremony was performed,
even in the presence of numerous ministers,
only by the presbytery, or officers of the partic-
ular church, occasionally assisted by some of
the brethren. This was done merely by way of
asserting and establishing the great pilnciple,
that the power of ordination resides in, and
emanates from, the Church. After this had
been sufficiently understood, it became the inva-
riable custom, and so continues to this day, that
the ceremony should he performed by other
ministers. But though administered by coun-
cils, it is still regarded as done solely at the re-

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 115

quest of the church which convenes the council
for that purpose.

The distinction between the duties of the
pastor and teacher, is thus defined in the Cam-
bridge Platform : " The pastor's special work
is, to attend to exhortation, and therein to ad-
minister a word of wisdom ; the teacher is to
attend to doctrine, and therein to administer a
word of knowledge." Both are empowered to
dispense the sacraments, to execute church-
censures, and to preach the Word, as to which
duties, " they are alike charged withal." ^ The
pastor, on whom chiefly devolved the care of
the flock when out of the pulpit, was expected
to spend his strength mostly in exhortation,
persuading and rousing the church to a wise
diligence in the Christian calling. The teacher
w^as to indoctrinate the church, and labor to in-
crease the amount of religious knowledge. His
workshop was the study ; while the pastor
toiled in the open field. Thus Mr. Cotton
gave himself up to reading and preparation for
the instruction of his people. Twelve hours of
close application he used to call " a student's
day; " and such a day's work he usually per-
formed, secluded among his books. For intelli-

* Chap. VI., sec. 5.

116 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

gence respecting the state of his flock, he
depended mostly upon the pastor and ruling-
elders. He received many visits, but seldom
made any himself. Perhaps it may help to a
clearer understanding of the difference in the
nature of these two offices, to state, that when a
case of excommunication occurred, it belonged
to the pastor to conduct the business and pro-
nounce the sentence, if the offence related to
immorality or " disorderly walking ; " but if it
were a matter of heretical or erroneous opin-
ions, it vvas expected that the teacher would
preside.

In the estimation of our fathers, the pastor's
station was considered to have rather the prior-
ity in importance and dignity. It has been a
source of perplexity with some, how this could
be, seeing that the teacher was sometimes much
more distinguished, as to his attainments and
general character, than his colleague ; as hap-
pened in this case of Mr. Cotton as compared
with Mr. Wilson. But it seems to be very in-
telligible, that a man may be pre-eminently
endowed with the qualifications needful in a
religious teacher, and yet be comparatively unfit
for the more active duties of the parochial care.
On the other hand, a man may be admirably
fitted to watch as a pastor over the flock of God,

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 117

who is comparatively disqualified to feed that
flock with knowledge and understanding.

It must not be supposed, that our fathers insti-
tuted two orders in the ministry. They firmly
held, that all ordained ministers were of equal
rank ; and that there is not the slightest supe-
riority of one over another, except such as
results from superior wisdom, knowledge, piety,
zeal, and reputation arising from either or all of
these, by which individuals are occasionally ele-
vated to a higher degree of estimation and influ-
ence than iheir brethren generally. With them,
the terms elder, pastor and bishop, were synony-
mous and interchangeable, as they are in the
New Testament, where they are used as differ-
ent names for the same office. The distinction
between the duties of the pastor and teacher was
merely a division of the labors belonging to their
common calling ; each taking the part for which
he was best qualified, without considering wheth-
er, in personal matters, he were the greater or
more honored of the two. The precedence was
accorded to the pastor, because the part of the
work assigned to him is essentially the more im-
portant part. For " the word of wisdom," in
which he was to deal, must be considered as
more honorable than " the word of knowledge,'*
which was the allotted province of the other.

118 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

Without any disparagement of the latter, we
may assent to the poet's estimate of the relative
value of each : —

"Knowledge dwells
In heads replete with thoughts of other men ;
Wisdom in minds attentive to their own.
Knowledge, a rude, unprofitable mass,
The mere materials with which wisdom builds,
Till smoothed, and squared, and fitted to his place, —
Does but encumber what it seems to enrich.
Knowledge is proud, that he has learned so much ;
Wisdom is humble, that he knows no more."

In this matter we may give more weight to
an opinion of Martin Luther's, recorded in his
" Table Discourses," as it seems in some sort to
be a decision against himself. " One asked
Luther, Which were greater and better — to
strive against the adversaries, or to admonish
and lift up the weak ? He answered and said,
' Both are very good and necessary ; but it is
somewhat greater and better to comfort the
faint-hearted.' "

The usage which now prevails in our churches
does not so much set aside the distinction be-
tween pastoral and teaching duties, as blend
both offices in one person, who is both pastor
and teacher to his congregation. Most of our
churches think themselves too small to require
the labors of two officers, and too poor to sus-

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 119

tain them. It were well, if they generally took
better care of the single minister in whom these
duties are united. Indeed these duties nat-
urally run into each other, and it is impossible
precisely to point out their bound-marks. It is
now expected that doctrine shall be preached
practically, and that practice be preached doc-
trinally. It is expected that each shall be so
discussed, as that one shall involve the other,
and their mutual relations be distinctly ex-
hibited.

Perhaps it would be well for larger and more
affluent churches to restore the ancient usage,
which our earlier churches practiced so far as
they were able. It is very rare to find a person
who combines the requisites of a pastor and a
teacher in a high and equal degree. And the
killing attempt to unite each sort of excellence,
where nature had conferred but one, has often
occasioned a lamented waste of life and talents.
The distinction recognized by our fathers still
exists, as it must in the nature of things. How
often it is said, Such an one is a fine preacher,
but no pastor ; and that another is a faithful
and successful pastor, but does not excel so
much in the pulpit. And their respective hear-
ers, who have sense enough to know that they

120 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

cannot have every kind of perfection in one
man, try to be thankful for such as they have.

About this time Mr. Cotton preached a ser-
mon, which has been repeatedly printed under
the title, '* God's Promise to his Plantations."
Its object is to exhibit the reasons which may
justify so serious a step as the forming of a new
settlement, like that in which he and his asso-
ciates were engaged. Its chief felicity, how-
ever, is the text, " Moreover I will appoint a
place for my people Israel, and I will plant
them, that they may dwell in a place of their
own, and move no more."^ Whatever fastidious
critics may think of our forefathers' antiquated
sermons, it cannot be denied that they had a
singularly happy faculty of finding appropriate
texts for every occasion. Mr. Cotton's selec-
tion, in the instance now referred to, had the
additional merit of being fulfilled in the result.
In our fathers and their posterity, was fulfilled
that which was spoken by the prophet of the
Lord : " He hath cast the lot for them, and his
hand hath divided it unto them by line ; they
shall possess it forever, from generation to gen-
eration shall they dwell therein. The wilder-
ness and the solitary place shall be glad for

* 2 bam. 7 : 10.

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 121

them ; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom
as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly and
rejoice, even with joy and singing."

At the time of Mr. Cotton's arrival, the eccle-
siastical and civil affairs of the colony were in a
confused plight. Under his advice, the state of
affairs improved so rapidly, and became so well
arranged, as to give some countenance to the
expression of one by no means friendly to what
he calls " the innovating genius of the great Cot-
ton," and who speaks of him as "sovereign in
his dogmas, and absolute in power." One of
our oldest historians has said, " Such was the
authority he had in the hearts of the people,
that whatever he delivered in the pulpit was
soon put into an order of court, if of a civil, or
set up as a practice in the church, if of an ec-
clesiastical concernment."^

Our Congregational churches are greatly in-
debted to him for that pre-eminent liberty they
enjoy. The liberty and power which Christ,
the King, had vested in his people, had for ages
been wrested away by men who, like all usurp-
ers, proved to be tyrants ; and turned, as the
Puritans said, " the Lord's house into a house
of Lords," where they domineered over the

* Hubbard'a History of New England.
VOL. T. 11

V22 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

faith and consciences of the disciples. The
rightful power and freedonn of the churches was,
by Mr. Cotton, deduced afresh from the Script-
ures, and fully re-established in practice. Our
churches have ever since been nobly jealous and
tenacious of that free ecclesiastical order which
Christ conferred upon them, and for whose
restoration they are indebted, under God, to Mr.
Cotton and his pious and learned associates.

An eccentric preacher of the Wesleyan per-
suasion, who has been for some time deceased,
is said to have publicly characterized the most
numerous denominations in New England in
this manner : " The watchword of the Congre-
gationalists is. Order ! order ! That of the
Baptists is, Water ! water ! And that of the
Methodists is, Fire ! fire ! " We have good
reason to be satisfied with our part of this
description. For water and fire are good ser-
vants, but very bad masters ; or, as the Duke of
Bridgewater was wont to say, " They are the
best of friends, but the worst of enemies." On
the other hand, "order is heaven's first law."
It is this which makes all the difllerence between
the stately walls of the temple, and heaps of
stones and building lumber. Ben Johnson sen-
tentiously observes : " It is only the disease of
the unskillful, to think rude things greater than

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 123

polished, or scattered more numerous than com-
posed." And Dryden's rhyme affords us a
valuable precept : —

" Set all things in their own peculiar place ;
And know that order ia the greatest grace."

Richard Hooker rejoiced, on his death -bed, at
the prospect of soon entering a world of order.
And doubtless the church on earth will more
closely resemble the church in heaven, when
every minister and every member shall be, as
godly John Norton says Mr. Cotton was, " like
the heavenly bodies, always in motion ; but
Btill careful to keep within his proper sphere."
The God whom we worship and serve, " is not
the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all
churches of the saints,"

124 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON

CHAPTER VI.

Principles of Congregational Church PolUy. Nature of the Church.
Simplicity of worship instituted by the New Testament. Early
innovations and perversions. Reformation in England incom-
plete. Diversities among the Puritans, some at either extreme.
Massachusetts Colonists shunned extremes. John Cotton's ' Keys
of the Kingdom of Heaven.' Cambridge Platform, 1648. Subject
proposed and divided. 1. Nature of the Church and its privileges
Origin of the name 'Congregational.' Letter to Skelion. Primi-
tive Churches were parochial and independent. Primitive order
restored in New England. The Church a monarchy democratically
administered. Connection and communion of independent Church-
es. Dr. Heylin. Cotton's objections to the term 'Independency.'
Opposition of Congregationalists to ' Brownism.' Cotton's reply
to Baillie. John Robinson's advice. Thomas Shepard. True
idea of Church unity. H. Nature and powers of the ministry.
O/Ficers of two sorts. The first order. Cotton's view. The second
order, or deacons. Apostolical succession discussed. Bishop
Hoadley. Archb. Whately. Bishop of Hereford. Macaulay. Or-
dination, what it is. Archbishop Cranmer. Bishop Burnet. Lu-
ther. Popular election of officers. Effect of ordination. Our
forefathers free from the hierarchal temper. HL Nature and forms
of public worship. What is prayer. Unlawful to iryipose forms.
Origin of liturgies. Lord Say and Seal Origin of English litur-
gy . Rejected by our fathers. Inconveniences of it. The use of
sacraments. Our fathers' discipline commended.

A ciiAPTKR or two will here be given to an ac-
count of the principles and merits of the system
of church government instituted by Mr. Cotton
and his associates in New England. Their

LIFE OP JOHN COTTON. 125

views and practices will be presented, avoiding,
as far as may be, all controverting of the opin-
ions of others.

The Church, as they viewed it, is the living
temple of God. The precious material, where-
with it is constructed, is hewn from the quarry
of human nature. The massive blocks had there
lain shapeless and senseless, and altogether dead
in trespasses and sins. But the Holy Ghost,
acting "by means of the fire and hammer of God's
Word, hath separated them from the formless
and lifeless mass, and hath squared and fitted
them for their respective places, and hath en-
tered into them and quickened them with an
everlasting life, and hath joined them in vital
union to Christ, that living Rock of salvation,
that head-stone of the corner, that eternal foun-
dation-ledge of Zion. Thus they, " as lively
stones, are built up a spiritual house," for "spir-
itual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus
Christ."

The grand temple at Jerusalem, which, allow-
ing for diflference of material, was modeled after
the plan of the tabernacle of Moses, was intended
to serve " unto the example and shadow of heav-
enly things." It was a type of the celestial or
spiritual sanctuary, " of the true tabernacle,

which the Lord pitched, and not man." Hence
11#

126 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

the care with which it was constructed to accord
precisely with a prescribed model, " as Moses
was admonished of God when he was about to
make the tabernacle ; for, See, saith he, that
thou make all things according to the pattern
showed to thee in the mount." The idea of the
worldly sanctuary is wholly taken from the
heavenly sanctuary.

The instituted worship of God under the older
Testament, abounded in forms and ceremonies
which had all of them a moral significance em-
bodying some divine truth, or shadowing out
some celestial reality. But even that ritual
must have nothing of human origin superadded.
The Pharisees brought in many innovations de-
rived by tradition of the elders. But Jesus
repeats, with approbation, the sentence of the
prophet against them : — " In vain do they wor-
ship me, teaching for doctrines the command-
ments of men." Mark the contrast here ; —
human traditions can never constitute a worship
acceptable to God. Therefore God required
that his altar should be built only of unhewn
stones ; and declared that whosoever lifted up a
tool upon it had polluted it. The purity of di-
vine worship is defiled by every admixture of
man's inventions and devices.

The instituted worship of the New Testa-

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 127

ment, delights not in figurative pomps and
shows, but in plain and literal truth. Its ordi-
nances are few and simple, because it rejoices,
not in the " shadows of good things to come,"
but in the " very image of the things" them-
selves. Here too, we are to see, that all things
be made according to the divine pattern, and
kept free from men's contrivances and tradition-
ary enlargements. The worship of the church
is to be fashioned after the New Testament ex-
emplar. We have there a fair transcript of the
pattern in the mount, a true copy of the ground
plan and elevations. To follow this, will be
unquestionably safe. To depart from it, will be
certainly to go wrong. It is not enough to jus-
tify such a usage in divine worship, to say that
there is nothing in the Bible expressly against
it. "The truth is," as Johr^ Norton tersely
says, " there is enough against it, if there be
nothing for it."

The apostles, " as wise master-builders," left
a fabric of doric strength and simplicity. But
the fair edifice soon began to be weakened and
marred by tasteless changes. And the spiritual
architects of the middle ages made sad havoc of
the venerable pile. Much of it was rased to the
very foundation : and what was buiU instead,
bore the marks of a modern and a meaner style.

12S LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

The work went on, till the straggling structure
presented a strange mixture of the handiwork of
different ages and nations. Some remains of
the primitive vastness and simplicity were still
visible : but oddly blended with Gothic pillars,
and Saxon arches, and Norman windows, and
Romanesque towers. Most of what was left of
the original building was covered up by cum-
brous and uncouth additions, and rudely daubed
with untempered mortar, or finely plastered over
with Italian stucco.

In the first times of the Protestant reformation,
much was done toward removing the huge mass
of innovations, and restoring the more ancient
order. But in England, the work of restitution
stopped all too soon. The reformation of doc-
trine was gloriously effected : but the reforma-
tion of order and worship fell far short of
recovering the primitive purity. The Puritans
felt that the work must go on much farther, be-
fore the just and necessary authority of Christ
could be re-established in his kingdom. They
came at once to the right principle, that the
Bible is our only safe and sufficient guide in
ecclesiastical practice, as well as in articles of
belief.

When our fathers reached these shores, they
had a general idea of the nature of that instituted

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 129

worship which they proposed to set up in con-
formity with the usage of the primitive Church,
in accordance with the pattern in the mount.
The details of the plan they had not as yet had
opportunity to study, nor had they come to an
entire agreement. They were fully determined
that every thing should be arranged by the rule
of Scripture : but they found some difficulty in
the application of this rule, till experience and
practice imparted the requisite skill.

There was much diversity of sentiment among
the Puritans. Some there were who still con-
formed, though very discontentedly, with what
they felt to be abuses, but which they hoped to
see purged away by the Church herself. There
were others who conformed in all points, except
some two or three. Others still refused con-
formity in half a dozen points ; and others again,
as many more. Some went so far as to separate
entirely from the Church of England, wholly
disowning it as a true Church of God.

The Puritans who formed the Massachusetts
colony shunned either extreme. On the one
hand, they refused to conform to the abuses
which were retained in the mother church : and
on the other hand, they resolutely protested, on
innumerable occasions, that they were no sepa-
ratists, and that they were in full communion

130 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

with all that was right and true in the Churches
of England, or any other country. Though, at
first, there was considerable diversity of senti-
ment on minor points among themselves, they,
as the light of truth shone progressively brighter,
came to an increasing agreement of views.
Their practices, at first, from necessity, some-
what uncertain, were modified by degrees, as
their experience and their knowledge of the
Scripture teachings on the subject became en-
larged. But they soon settled down into the
usages which have so long been maintained in
our churches.

Their first printed guide in ecclesiastical mat-
ters was John Cotton's celebrated book, entitled,
" The Keyes of the Kingdom of Heaven." This
work has been recently republished by one of
our enterprising booksellers ; and a treatise so
curious and instructive ought to have a wide
circulation. It is chiefly interesting as a dem-
onstration, that every individual church, with its
own officers, is the depository of "the power of
the keys." In other words, all the ecclesiastical
rights and powers which Christ has given to his
Church, are given to every regularly constituted
independent church.

In describing the metes and bounds of church
power, Mr. Cotton argues thjjit, as in the State,

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 131

there is a division of powers into several hands,
which are to concur in all acts of common con-
cern, and which arrangement results in a heal-
thy constitution of the body politic. This book
maintains, that a church, duly organized with
its own proper officers, has within itself all that
is necessary to its continuance and well-being,
and to the management of its own elections, ad-
missions, and censures. Elders and brethren
are the constituent members of this sacred cor-
poration. The elders are entrusted with gov-
ernment, the brethren are invested with privilege.
The church is so to be ruled by its elders who
are over it in the Lord, that without them noth-
ing may ordinarily be done, and that they may
have a negative upon the votes of the fraternity,
and that they alone may authoritatively preach
and administer sacraments : — yet are the breth-
ren to be so upheld in their liberties, that, unless
with their consent, nothing of common concern
may be imposed upon them. Because particu-
lar churches may abuse their power, the book of
the keys asserts the need of church communion
m synods or councils, which may determine,
declare or enjoin such things as will correct
abuses or disorders in the offending congrega-
tions. But still to such churches themselves
must be left the formal acts which are requisite

132 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

for carrying out the advice of the council. If
such advice should be scandalously and obsti-
nately refused, then it will be the duty of the
council to withdraw communion from the contu-
macious church.

Tliis is a summary of the main positions of
that once celebrated book ; and these positions
are sustained by the Cambridge Platform, except
what relates to the claim of a veto-power in the
elders; on which Mr. Cotton soon ceased to in-
sist.

Soon after its publication, the famous Dr.
Owen undertook to confute it ; instead of which,
quite contrary to his expectation, it confuted and
converted him. While speaking of its effect
upon his mind, he makes the following remark :
" And, indeed, this way of impartial examining
all things by the Word, comparing causes with
causes, and things Avith things, laying aside all
prejudicate respects unto persons, or present
traditions, is a course that I would admonish all
to beware of, who would avoid the danger of
being made Independents.'"^

The " Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven," was
the standard book of New England church dis-
cipline, till the Cambridge Platform was brought

* A Review of ihc true nature of schism. By John Owen, D. D.,
cliapler II.

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 133

forth in 164S, by a synod which sublimely closed
its proceedings with singing " the song of Mose3
and the Lamb," in the fifteenth chapter of the
Revelation.

Since the Cambridge Platform was adopted,
the custom of our churches has varied in a few
particulars from what is recommended there.
Thus the Platform advises that each church
should have its pastor, its teacher, and its ruling
elder, as well as its deacons. And this arrange-
ment, for a while, was generally kept up. But
before long, the offices of pastor and teacher
were merged in one : or rather, one person filled
them both : and the duties of the ruling elder,
which principally related to discipline, were
practically devolved in the smaller churches up-
on the pastor and deacons; and in the larger
churches, upon a committee chosen for such
purposes.

It is not my object to give a complete descrip-
tion of all the usages of Congregationalism at
the present day. To do this, with the grounds
and reasons of those usages, would require a
volume by itself. Nor is it necessary. Every
one who wishes to examine the matter, may
find all that is important in some of the older
and of the more recent publications, where
all the information necessary has been la-
VOL. I. 12

134 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

boriously collected, and arranged with admi-
rable judgment and care.

All that will now be attempted, is a general
description of the leading features of the church
government adopted by the venerated fathers of
New England.

This will be presented under three sections.

First, the nature of the church and its priv-
ileges ;

Secondly, the nature and powers of the min-
isterial office ;

Thirdly, the nature and forms of public wor-
ship.

SECTION I .

THE NATURE OF THE CHURCH AND ITS PRIVILEGES.

The term "Congregational" appears to have
been first brought into use by John Cotton. His
preference for it was grounded on the fact, that
the word which, in our English version of the
Bible, is rendered churchy simply and properly
means a congregation. The word would have
been rendered " congregation," if King James
had not required his translators to use the word
" church" instead. The right sense is given in

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 135

the nineteenth Article of Religion of the Church
of England, where the church is defined to be
" a congregation of faithful men, in which the
true Word of God is preached, and the sacra-
ments duly administered according to Christ's
ordinances, in all those things that of necessity-
are requisite to the same." So exactly does
this language express the Puritan sentiments on
the subject, as to justify the celebrated Earl of
Shaftesbury, when he said in debate before the
house of lords, that he " found the nineteenth
article did define the church directly as the In-
dependents do."

In a letter addressed to Rev. Samuel Skelton
of Salem by Mr. Cotton, three years before he
left England, there is given the following defini-
tion of a church : — " It is a flock of saints, called
by God into the fellowship of Christ, meeting
together in one place, to call upon the name of
the Lord, and to edify themselves in communi-
cating spiritual gifts, and partaking of the ordi-
nances of the Lord." After his coming to this
country, Mr. Cotton would have added to the
above definition, that a mutual covenant, express
or implied, to unite for the purposes specified, is
necessary to complete the constitution of a
church. He subscribed to the Cambridge Plat-
form, which teaches, that in the larger and more

136 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

general sense, " the Catholic church is the whole
company of those that are elected, redeemed,
and in time effectually called from sin and death
unto a state of grace and salvation by Jesus
Christ.'"^ In the common and more special
sense, the true visible church is " a company of
saints by calling, united into one body, by a holy
covenant, for the public worship of God, and the
mutual edification one of another, in the fellow-
ship of the Lord Jesus." t

The national churches imagine that all the
christian people residing in any country form
such a congregation. But our fathers held, that
the term denotes a literal congregation, meeting
statedly in one place for divine worship and
ordinances, and united for that purpose into one
body by a holy covenant. They could find no
trace of any hierarchy in the New Testament.
All the acts of church government, and discipline
mentioned in that book, were administered by
individual churches. They saw, that, in the
apostles' time, no one church claimed any right
to rule over another. They saw, that each
church, great or small, had as full power to
manage its own affairs, as though it had been
the only church in existence. They saw, that

♦ Chap. II. sec. 1. f lb. aec. 5.

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 137

each individual church was a complete body of
itself, endowed with all the organs of indepen-
dent vitality, and enabled to do whatever may
be needful for its own preservation, well-being,
and enlargement.

There is something noble and liberal in this
idea, which presents all Christian congregations
as so many free, spiritual communities ; not
governed by others, but each governing itself by
he rules and requirements of God's Word. It
was only by a long series of usurpations and
gradual encroachments, that the churches lost
this original and free constitution, and became
massed together under the ghostly tyranny of
lordly hierarchs.

Our fathers restored in New England the
primitive apostolical order by which each several
congregation, or church in the ordinary New
Testament sense, is divinely empowered to carry
on a system of self-government in strict observ-
ance of the rules of the gospel, as to election
of officers, admission and discipline of members,
and general management of its own ecclesias-
tical affairs. Each church, duly constituted,
with its own officers, was entitled to act for itself
in all such matters, free from the control of any
man, or body of men, external to itself In the
New Testament, our fathers could find no war-
12#

138 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

rant for synodical, or diocesan, or provincial, or
national, or parliamentary churches ; or for
churches organized by civil authority. They
found the apostles planting no churches, but
such as were parochial : that is to say, distinct
congregations, composed of persons possessing
the faith, usually meeting in one assembly, and
transacting their own business w^ithout any sub-
jection to foreign authority. They held, that
any organized congregation of believers, formed
and kept up under the influences of the Holy
Spirit, and the regulations of the written Word
of God, is an evangelical church. The view
which our fathers took of such a church was
this ; — It is an absolute monarchy democratically
administered. It is an absolute monarchy : for
Christ is its supreme Head and King ; his will is
law ; he alone has the right to legislate ; and his
decrees recorded in the Bible must alone be obey-
ed. And the affairs of this spiritual monarchy are
democratically administered : for to the church
is given the free election of all executive officers,
and the members are all possessed of equal
rights and privileges. What noble schools of
liberty and independence of soul, willingly obe-
dient to Christ, but free from vassalage to man,
must be found in these self-governing societies !
There is a passage in a letter from Mr. Cotton

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 139

to the Lord viscount Say and Seal, which has
been supposed to militate against these views.
It is in tlie following words ; — " Democracy I do
not conceive that ever God did ordain as a fit
government, either for church or commonwealth.
If the people be governors, who shall be govern-
ed ? As for monarchy and aristocracy, they are
both of them clearly approved and directed in
Scripture, yet so as referreth the sovereignty to
himself, [i. e. to God,] and setteth up Theocracy
in both, as the best form of government in the
commonwealth as well as in the church.'"^ At
the first view, this passage seems to be in violent
opposition to Mr. Cotton's advocacy of popular
institutions on all other occasions. Some, who
are friendly to his memory, know not what to
make of it; and others regard it as a lure to
tempt certain Puritan peers and other great men
to come over and join the colonies, as many of
them were then thinking to do.

The matter is easily set right by considering
the meaning of the words "democracy" and "aris-
tocracy," as used in this letter. The aristocracy
spoken of here is elective, and for the most part
temporary. Every representative government is
an aristocracy, elected by the people to make and

* See the leller in HuLchinson'3 History of Massachusetts, vol. I.,
p. 437, &;c.

140 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

administer the laws, for longer or shorter peri-
ods. A simple democracy, according to the
primary sense of the word, and the definitions
of the ablest political writers, is a state of things
in which the whole collected people make and
execute the laws. This is mere mob-law, which
is no government at all, having neither settled
constitution nor executive officers. It is in this
sense, that John Cotton denounces democracy ;
as every reasonable man must do. But the word
in our day is taken in a much better sense than
formerly, and is used to designate that republi-
can form of government in which the people act
through regularly constituted officers of their
own choosing. That this was Mr. Cotton's
meaning is plain from another passage in the
same letter, toward the close, which is quoted
for the sake of making him, as he has a right to
be, his own interpreter. " Bodine confesseth,
that, though it be status popularis where the
people choose their own governors, yet the gov-
ernment is not a democracy, if it be administered,
not by the people, but by the governors, whether
one, (for then it is a monarchy, though elective,)
or by many, for then, as you know, it is aristoc-
racy. In which respect it is, that church gov-
ernment is justly denied, even by Mr. Robinson,
to be democratical, though the people choose

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 141

their own officers and rulers."^^ We find the
same idea expressed by Mr. Stone of Hartford,
when asked to describe the Congregational gov-
ernment. He replied in his scholastic way ; —
"It is a speaking Aristocracy in the face of a
silent Democracy." The church is taught and
ruled by officers, who are freely chosen by the
people to act in their offices as the Bible directs.
This arrangement secures, at once, the order and
the liberty of the churches.

Because churches are thus emancipated from
all foreign jurisdiction, it must not be supposed,
that they are isolated, disconnected bodies, hav-
ing no mutual relations of love and duty. No :
they are a sisterhood : and though all the sisters
stand on terms of equality and liberty, they are
both necessarily and willingly bound in family
ties, the strongest and sweetest of any. As the
liberty of the individual Christian is not inconsist-
ent with " the communion of saints," so neither
is the liberty of particular congregations incon-
sistent with the communion of churches. Dr.
Heylin, though a bitter hater of the Puritans,
has very happily described John Robinson's
"model of church government" as " consisting of
a coordination of several churches for their mu-

# Hutchinson's Hist. I., 439.

142 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

tual comfort ; not a subordination of the one to
the other, in the way of direction or command.
Hence," he adds, " came the name of ' Independ-
ents,' continued unto those amongst us who
neither associate themselves with the Presbyte-
rians, nor embrace the frenzies of the Anabap-
tists." It is mostly by this name of " Independ-
ents " that the Congregationalists, who are now
so numerous in England, are generally known
in that country. That name, however, was not
wholly satisfactory to Mr. Cotton. He remarks
upon it as follows: — " Nor is ' Independency' a fit
name for the way of our churches : for in some
respects it is too strait, and in others too large.
It is too strait, in that it confineth us within our-
selves, and holdeth us forth as independent of
all others : whereas indeed we do profess depend-
ence upon magistrates for civil government and
protection, dependence upon Christ and his
Word for the sovereign government and rule of
our administrations, dependence upon the coun-
sel of other churches and synods when our own
variance or ignorance may stand in need of such
help from them ; and therefore this title of
' Independency ' straiteneth us and restraineth
us from our necessary duty and due liberty.
Again, in other respects, * Independency ' stretch-
eth itself too largely and more generally than

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 143

that it can single out us, for it is compatible to a
national church as well as to a congregational.
— Wherefore, if there must needs be some note
of difference to decypher our estate and to dis-
tinguish our way, I know of none fitter than
to denominate ours — ' Congregational.' " "^ The
name ' Independent ' is expressly disapproved
by the Cambridge Platform.!

Some of the more rigid Separatists, known by
the uncouth title of Brownists, carried the idea
of independency to such an extreme as to render
every church an isolated body, dwelling soli-
tarily, without a sisterhood, and the cheering
interchange of acts of communion. They were
hurried to this extremity, by the excessive
anxiety to avoid any entanglement which might
again ensnare them in the meshes of ecclesias-
tical bondage. Mr. Cotton and his coadjutors
happily avoided a sentiment so destructive of all
the benefits of the fellowship of the churches.
In replying to Baillie, Mr. Cotton takes occasion
to say of Brown ; — " Neither in whole nor in
part do we partake in his schism ; he separated
from churches and from saints ; we, only from
the world, and from that which is of the world."
— " Though we put not such honor upon those

* Way of Congregational Churches Cleared, p. 11.
t Chap. II. Sect. 5.

144 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

he calls ' Brownists,' as to own them for our
' fathers,' yet neither do we put so much dis-
honor upon them as to ' heap coals of con-
tumely ' upon their heads : we look not on
them with contempt, but compassion."^ Mr.
Cotton concurred in sentiment with the excellent
John Robinson, who, in his parting instructions
to that part of his flock which was about to
proceed from Leyden to the Plymouth rock,
recommended them to use " all means to avoid
and shake off the name of Brownist, being a
mere nickname, and brand, to make religion
odious, and the professors of it, to the Christian
world."! Our fathers held indeed, that every
congregation is completely independent of all
others as to jurisdiction and authoritative con-
trol; but not as to other forms of connection
arising from common interests and reciprocal
aflfections. They carefully cherished an inter-
course of mutual respect, and confidence, and
love, an interchange of counsels, and aids, and
fraternal offices ; which they styled " the com-
munion of churches." The judicious and mod-
erate opinions of our fathers are well expressed
by Thomas Shcpard : — " We utterly dislike
such Independency as that which is maintained

* Way of Congregational Churches Cleared, p. 9, 10.
Young's Clironicles, p. 397.

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 145

by contempt, or careless neglect, of sister
churches. We utterly dislike such dependency
of churches upon others, as is built upon usur-
pations and spoils of particular churches.'"^

The Puritans loved church unity ; — not a
mere nominal and formal union, where there is
neither life nor similarity; a union well com-
pared by Leighton to that of sticks and stones
when frozen together ; a union consisting in a
bare outward uniformity, under which is con-
cealed the bitterest scorn and hate. They
prized " the unity of the faith," and sought to
keep " the unity of the Spirit in the bond of
peace:" and this was nearly all they deemed
important.

Great efforts have been made to effect a uni-
formity of government and worship, which
should bring all Christendom into one ecclesias-
tical establishment, with unvarying modes and
forms. There are men whose notion of the
church is like a system of gas-pipes in a great
city, branching in all directions, yet meeting at
last in one main trunk, which is regarded with
senseless awe, and mystic veneration as " the
great centre of visible unity." Very different
is the Gospel view, which shows every par-

* Treaiiae of Liturgies, &c., p. 114. 1653.
VOL. I. 13

146 LIFE OF JOHN COT-TON.

ticular church to be built directly on Christ as
the foundation, and to be no otherwise connected
with other churches, except as through him
who is as the common foundation of them all.
So too each believer, by himself, is a branch of
the true vine, deriving life and nourishment,
not mediately through ramified boughs of de-
pendence and long limbs of distant succession ;
but immediately from Christ himself, in whom
all the branches grow, who is the only vital
bond of union between them. All real Christian
union circulates through him from church to
church, and from heart to heart. This hallowed
bond is not an indefinitely extended chain of
which only the head-link fastens directly upon
the mediatorial throne. Every believer is him-
self in Christ. The disciples are one in him,
and only in him. To all of them his Spirit is
imparted directly from himself; and this unites
them by pervading them all.

A Catholic Christian union already exists, so
far as the different denominations rest upon the
true foundation. An old divine has said, " I
have seen a field here, and another there, stand
thick with corn. An hedge or two has parted
them. At the proper season, the reapers en-
tered. Soon the earth was disburthened, and
the grain was conveyed to the destined place ;

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 147

where, blended together in the barn, or in the
stack, it could not be known that a hedge once
separated this corn frona that. Thus it is with
the church. Here it grows, as it were, in dif-
ferent fields, severed, it may be, by various
hedges. By and by, when the harvest is come,
all God's wheat shall be gathered into the gar-
ner, without one single mark to distinguish that
once they differed in the outward circumstan-
tials of modes and forms."

The " high-church" temper does not accord
with the genius of Congregationalism. We
are not of those who are never sure that they
are actually in the temple, until they find 'them-
selves perched upon its topmost pinnacle. Such
as these, Dean Kennet speaks of, as having lost
their Christianity in the name of the church.
Luther describes them as " attributing more
power to the church which is begotten and
born, than to the Word which hath begotten,
conceived, and borne the church." Of such
men, John Cotton used to say, " They are all
church, and no Christ."

148 LIFE or JOHN COTTON.

SECTION II.

NATURE AND POWERS OF THE MINISTERIAL OFFICE.

The fathers of New England held that the
officers of the church are of two sorts. One of
these is variously spoken of as pastors, teach-
ers, elders, presbyters, bishops, overseers, and
other names indicative of the nature of their
calling-, and its duties. These all stand upon
an equality as regards rank and authority.
There is no difference among them, except
such as make any man to differ from his politi-
cal equals, arising from diversity of talents,
attainments, or moral worth. Hence the office
holds out no temptation to those ambitious
aspirants, whose whole desire is to reach some
station superior to that of their fellows. There
is BO contending which shall be greatest in the
kingdom of heaven, so long as there is no such
condition acknowledged there. Each looks his
brother in the eye, without receiving from him
the glance of arrogance, or casting upon him
that of uneasy inferiority. The primitive paro-
chial bishops of the old " standing order " in
Massachusetts, look with pity on those dissent-
ing presbyters, who sink the dignity of their

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 149

office, by giving place to spiritual superiors
whom the Chief Shepherd never set over them.
The Scripture view of the ministerial office is
thus briefly summed up by the venerable John
Cotton : " The bishops Paul speaketh of in
Timothy, of whose qualification he giveth direc-
tion, (1 Tim. 2 : 2—7,) he calleth them all,
when he cometh to give order for their mainte-
nance, by the name of elders. And in his
epistle to Titus, the elders which Paul left Titus
to ordain in every city, he calleth them bishops.
Tit. 1 : 5 — 7. Now of these he appointeth many
in one city or church ; not many cities or
churches under one bishop, Acts 14 : 23 ; elders
in every city. Acts 20 : 17, 28 ; many elders
or bishops in the church of Ephesus, Phil. 1:1;
many bishops as well as many deacons in one
church of Philippi, and that a poor one too ; for
Philippi was a church in Macedonia, Acts 16 :
12 ; and all the churches in Macedonia had
trial of deep poverty, 2 Cor. 8 : 12." ^

The deacons form the only other class of
church-officers to be seen in the light of the
New Testament. Their appropriate duty is, to
attend to the secular afllairs of the church ; but
being usually more eminent for active piety,

* Way of the Churches of New England, &c., p. 48.

13=^

150 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

they are chiefly looked to for advice, and ex-
pected to prepare the business which may come
before the church. It is singular that, in most
religious denominations, this office is either dis-
continued, or its nature and duties are entirely
changed. In the hierarchal churches, the dea-
cons are transferred from the charge of tempo-
ralities to that of spiritualities. They have
ceased to " serve tables," and profess to " give
themselves to the AVord of God and to prayer."
In a word, they claim to be clergymen. More-
over, they are never inducted into their office
with any expectation of retaining it for life. It
is not sought or conferred for its own sake ; but
merely as one condition of being admitted to a
higher order in the priesthood. It is difficult to
conceive of a greater departure from its original
design, than this divinely appointed office has
undergone. In the Congregational churches it
is retained, and fulfills its original purposes.

We hear much in our times about the neces-
sity of an " apostolical succession " in the gos-
pel ministry. And truly such a succession is
needful, not in form, but in fact ; not in show,
but in spirit. Wherever you see a " son of
consolation," one " who is a good man, and full
of the Holy Ghost and of faith," there you see a
true successor of the apostles, so far as they can

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 151

have successors on earth. It is no matter
through what external source he may have
derived his license or authority to preach the
gospel and administer its offices ; if the spirit
that was in the apostles be in him, he is their
fellow-laborer, and their successor in the work
they wrought. Though he may have under-
gone no prelatical manipulations, he is qualified
to serve at the altar, " by the imposition of a
holier hand."

When we see a man called to the ministry by
the church of God, his mind instinct with the
grand truths of revelation, " mighty in the
Scriptures," fervent in spirit, instant in prayer,
burning with love to Jesus, and to the souls for
which Jesus bled, laboriously and faithfully dis-
pensing the bread of life to hearts hungering for
the heavenly food, where is he who will coldly
ask to see his commission to preach the gospel,
to ascertain if it be endorsed by human sanc-
tions ? When such a ministry is blessed to the
illumination of the ignorant, to the reformation
of the profligate, the conversion of the infidel,
the comfort of the afflicted, the edification of be-
lievers, and the salvation of hundreds and of
thousands, who would care to inspect his eccle-
siastical pedigree ? While such a man " con-
tinues steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and

152 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in
prayers," who will question the apostles' fellow-
ship with him, and their approval of his work?

Look at Bunyan, faring so coarsely in Bed-
ford jail, and yet with quenchless zeal exercising
his despised ministry with the broad seal of
heaven's approbation, — the effusion of the Holy
Ghost making it effectual for the conversion of
sinners and the consolation of saints. Then
look at the lordly diocesan, under whose unhal-
lowed authority that man of God was incarce-
rated only for doing his Master's work, — look at
the " enthronized" prelate, arrayed in canonical
silks and rubrical lawns, intent on worldly dig-
nities and possessions, a stranger to the great
teachings of the gospel, and hostile to its spirit.
Compare the two men, the tinker and his op-
pressor. Then, with the Acts of the Apostles
and their Epistles in your hands, ask which of
the two men looks the most like their successor.
Were the fishermen of Galilee, or the tent-maker
of Tarsus to revisit this world, the scene of their
toils and sufferings for Christ and his Church,
in which of these men would they discern the
clearest proofs of spiritual affinity with them-
selves ? With which would they most readily
hold communion in their ministerial offices ?

When you receive the sacrament with a heart

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 153

melted in penitence, glowing with love, burning
with holy desire ; when you enter with your
whole soul into the communion of saints ; when
you feed on Jesus by faith, and find that his
flesh is meat indeed, and his blood drink indeed ;
when, in that sacred hour, heaven descends into
your bosom, and all is joy and peace : say, — can
you doubt the validity of the ordinance, and
scruple at the official character of the adminis-
trator ? No : you would say ; — " God is here,
and it is good for me to be here : for truly my
fellowship is with the Father and his Son Jesus
Christ." That man's religion is vain, who
proudly rejects a ministry which God conde-
scends to accept, and seal with his presence and
his blessing. Wherever we find the most of
the apostolical doctrine and the apostolical spirit,
there we are sure to find the most genuine suc-
cession.

As for this ecclesiastical figment of a direct
lineal succession from the apostles, we may ar-
ray against it not only the opinion of our fathers,
but the testimony of prelates inferior to none in
learning, and as much interested as any of their
brethren in sustaining the fiction, if it were pos-
sible.

The famous Dr. Hoadley, Bishop of Bangor,
declared, "As far as we can judge of things,

154 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

God's providence never yet in fact kept up a
regular, uninterrupted succession of rightful
Bishops.'"^ Speaking of that pretended succes-
sion, he says ; — " Of which the most learned
must have the least assurance ; and the un-
learned can have no notion, but through igno-
rance and credulity."! Dr. Whately, the
present Archbishop of Dublin, has declared ; —
" There is not a minister in all Christendom who
is able to trace up, with any approach to cer-
tainty, his own spiritual pedigree. "t The pres-
ent Bishop of Hereford, in a charge to his clergy,
says, in reference to the certainty of an apostoli-
cal succession ; — " To spread abroad this notion,
would be to make ourselves the derision of the
world.-'"^

The " simple faithful," and such as " occupy
the room of the unlearned," are in a sorry case,
if they can never take the comfort of Christian
sacraments in due security, till they can decide
where erudite prelates disagree. It happens,
somewhat oddly, that, at least two metropolitans
of the Anglican Church, Tillotson and Seeker ;

♦ Preservative against Nonjurors, p. 47, 4th ed.
t Answer to Ilepresentation by Committee of Convocation,
p. 89— 91.
t Whalely's Kingdom of Christ, Esaay II., Sect. 30.
§ Cited in Hall's Puritans, p. 388.

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 155

and four of its heads, James the First, William
the Third, and George the First and the Second,
had none but Presbyterian baptism, which is
said by some to be a nullity. " So we have
Bishops appointed by unbaptized heads of the
church, and consecrated by prelates excommu-
nicated at Rome," the corrupt mother of a cast-
off daughter, who yet claims to inherit all her
boasted exclusive privileges from that unhappy
parentage. It is surely impolitic to rest the
doctrines of the church, as Macaulay has well
said, "on a historical theory, which, to ninety-
nine Protestants out of a hundred, would seem
much more questionable than any of those doc-
trines. "=^ It is far better to derive our belief
from the apostolical Scriptures, which are the
pure fountain-head ; than from any of the
branches of that " muddy Tiber," the Roman
succession.

The Israelites were thought to be in sad
plight, when, for lack of smiths, they were forced
to go down to the Philistines, " to sharpen every
man his share, and his coulter, and his axe, and
his mattock." It was acutely said by some of
our old Puritans ; — " Sure, if Christians might

not have any ministers, unless ordained by the

I

* See an able article on " Church and Slate," in the Edinburgh Re-
view for April, 1839.

156 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

popish bishops, the case were as pitiful as if
sheep might have no shepherds, but such as are
appointed to them by the wolves.'"^

Of late years the old superstitious notions of
ordination seem to be regaining ground. There
are many who look upon this solemnity as a sort
of charm, having a magical effect to make a man,
be he what he may, a true minister of Christ ;
and investing him with a mysterious character,
and conferring on his ministrations a spiritual
efficacy which cannot be secured in any other
way. The first reformers and the martyrs of
the reformation had juster sentiments. In the
book entitled " The Necessary Doctrine and
Erudition of a Christian Man," which was
penned by Archbishop Cranmer as a text-book
for the instruction of the common people, that
blessed martyr affirms the original identity of
bishops and presbyters ; and contends that noth-
ing more than mere election, or appointment, is
essential to the sacerdotal office, without conse-
cration, or any other solemnity. From a man-
uscript in the handwriting of the same worthy ,^
penned with a view to further reformation in the
time of Edward VI., and transcribed by bishop
Stillingfleet in his Irenicum, occurs the follovv-

* iVIodegl ami Brotherly Answer to Charles Herle, by Ri. Mather
and Win. Tlioiiipsou, IGll.

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 157

•

ing explicit Statement ; — " Question 12. Wheth-
er in the New Testament be required any conse-
cration o( a bishop and priest, or only appointing
to the office be sufficient ? " " Arisiver. In the
New Testament to be a bishop or priest needeth
no consecration, by the Scripture : for election or
appointing thereto is sufficient." Seeing that
the consecrating rites of ordination are used, not
of necessity, but only for decency or solemnity,
it is of very little importance, comparatively, how
or by whom they are performed. If the cere-
monies were omitted, the ordination would be
less decorous, but not less valid.

Such evangelically liberal opinions were once
more common than now, in those who arrogate
the episcopal function to themselves. In the
reign of James the First, the bishops of Raphoe
and Elphin, in Ireland, united as presbyters
with the Scottish presbyterians in ordination
services."^ Archbishop Bancroft, though a stern
persecutor of all non-conformity, and the rest of
the bishops with him, owned ordination by pres-
byters to be valid : and, on this account, refused
to reordain the Scottish presbyters who were
then to be made bishops of the new dioceses in
North Britain ; declaring that to doubt it, was to

* Bogue and Bennett's History, vol- II. p. 41 1.
VOL. I. 14

159 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

•

doubt whether " there were any lawful vocation
in most of the reformed churches. ""^ Dr. Bur-
net, bishop of Salisbury, thus expressed himself
on this subject ; — *' As for the notion of the dis-
tinct offices of bishop and presbytef, I confess it
is not so clear to me : and therefore, since I look
upon the sacramental actions as the highest of
sacred performances, I cannot but acknowledge
those who are empowered for them, must be of
the highest office in the church." t

Erasmus does not hesitate to say, that, in the
time of the apostles, " Bishop, Priest, and Pres-
byter was all the same," I But it were out of
place here to relate such testimonies, which are
numerously rehearsed in the books which ex-
pressly treat of these topics. Let these citations
suffice to show, that our fathers were not sin-
gular in their opinions, which their strenuous
adversaries had not always the hardihood to
controvert. Even what has been called " lay
ordination," in cases of emergency is not with-
out the sanction of divines of the highest con-
sideration, both in ancient and modern times.
Thus Luther says ; — " If any pious laymen
were banished to a desert, and having no regu-

* Archb Spolteswood's Hisl. p. 514.

t Vindication of the Church of Scotland, p. 310.

I Opera, Tom. V. Col. 652. Ed. Lugd. 1701.

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 159

larly constituted priest among them, were to
asrree to choose for that office one of their num-
ber, married or unmarried, this man would be
as truly a priest as if he had been consecrated
by all the bishops in the world. Augustine,
Ambrose, and Cyprian were chosen in this
manner.'"^ Even Hooker, the boasted cham-
pion of prelatic power, was "judicious " enough
in the third book of his Ecclesiastical Polity, to
acknowledge boldly, that such ordinations have
been often justifiable. " There may be," he
says, " sometimes very just and sufficient reason
to allow ordination made without a bishop.
Where the Church must needs have some
ordained, and neither hath nor can have possibly
a bishop to ordain, in case of such necessity the
ordinary institution of God hath given often-
times, and may give place."

Our fathers held that the power of calling
suitable persons to office, belongs to the church ;
and there too inheres the power of displacing
such incumbents as prove to be incapable or
unworthy. It is a maxim of law, that the right
of divesting for good cause, goes with the right
of investing.! The privilege of calling to office

* Appeal to the German emperor and nobles, given in D'Aubigne's
Hist, of Reformation. II. 84.
t Cujus est instituere, ejusdem est destituere.

160 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

the first churches exercised in the very presence
of the apostles. And it was many ag^es before
this privilege was entirely wrested out of their
hands by the hierarchal usurpers, who strove to
exalt the clergy at the expense of the people,
and acted on the principle that the church was
made for the minister, and not the minister for
the church. Though all the ministers were to
perish in a night, the Church would still survive
in the baptized fraternity ; and this brotherhood
would be authorized to establish the ministry
anew. It is from the Church that the ministry
must come. They must be church members
before they can become church ministers ; and
the very name of minister^ or servant, implies
the previous existence, and the appointing
power, of the body to be served.

The opinion of our fathers is thus expressed
by Cotton Mather ; — " Ordination they looked
upon but as a ceremony, whereby a called min-
ister was declared by imposition of hands, to be
solemnly set apart for his ministry ; and in the
same rite, the assistances, and protections, and
manifold blessings of the Holy Ghost in the
exercises of his ministry, were solemnly im-
plored for him. Briefly, they reckoned not
ordination to be essential unto the vocation of a
minister, any more than coronation to the being

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 161

of a king ; but that it is only a consequent and
convenient adjunct of his vocation, and a solemn
acknowledgment of it, with an useful and proper
benediction of him in it."^

Properly the church elects her own officers ;
and ordination is but solemnly and formally
setting apart to his duties the person so chosen.
It is no charm, and exerts no magic power. It
is merely opening to suitable persons that door
of office which should stand closed to the un-
suitable. As the church has the sole right of
calling to office, this greater right involves the
lesser right of directing how the ordination
should be conducted, due regard being had to
the requirements of the Bible. But though
officers derive their calling from the voice of the
church ; yet the powers and privileges of office,
after they are called and inducted, they derive
from the appointment of Christ, who has deter-
mined in his law what they shall be. Thus it
is in our civil commonwealth, which is modeled
very much upon the Scriptural plan of church
polity. The executive officers of the State ob-
tain their offices by the choice of the people ;
but being once chosen, their duties and preroga-
tives are not prescribed by the popular will, but

* Magnalia Book V. Ch. XVII. Sect. 5.

14#

162 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

by the written constitution of government. So
the church appoints her ministers ; but Christ
appoints their duties and privileges in the Bi-
ble, the sacred statute-book of his kingdom.
" The law and the testimony,'' describes the
nature of these offices ; the Church only sup-
plies incumbents to occupy them. They who
hold them are to follow only the regulations
which their Lord has enacted. The Church
may exclude from her ministry, and her mem-
bership such as prove themselves unworthy ; for
to this end the keys of the kingdom are com-
mitted to her with the tremendous power of
binding on earth what shall also be confirmed
in heaven. But if she attempt to exercise this
" power of the keys " contrary to the decrees of
inspiration, nothing is effected; for in so doing
she changes the key, and an erroneous key
bindeth not."^ The Church can do nothing but
what Christ has authorized to be done. The
power committed to the Church is not legisla-
tive, but administrative. Her power is ministe-
rial, or stewardly ; and it is for this purpose,
that " the keys " are hung at her girdle. Christ
put a stop to law-making, when he made an
end of the canon of inspiration. The matter is

* Clavia errans aon ligat

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 163

forcibly expressed by Mr. Cotton, of whom a
very powerful opponent remarked ; — " I had a
particular unwillingness to enter the lists of
strife with that reverend, famous, most able,
and tight writer." Mr. Cotton was speaking of
that clause in the apostolic commission ; —
" Teaching them to observe all things whatso-
ever I have commanded you." His words are :
" If the apostles teach people to observe more
than Christ has commanded, they go heyond
their commission; and a larger commission
than that given to the apostles, neither Elders,
nor Synods, nor Churches can challenge."

This matter- is discussed by him with great
clearness and " evidence of Scripture light " in
his book, entitled " The Keys of the Kingdom
of Heaven." This is, at the present day, the
most important of his published writings. He
here claims somewhat more of authority for the
elders of the Church, than has usually been
conceded among Congregationalists ; and par-
ticularly he ascribes to the elders the veto
power, so that they may have a negative upon
the acts of the brotherhood ; but no right, in any
thing which concerns the latter to impose
aught upon them without their consent. With
this one exception as to the veto, the senti-
ments of this book accord with what has been

164 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

generally professed by our churches, and it is
marked by careful discrimination and logical
precision.

Their great business of proclaiming the gos-
pel, clothes the ministers with an influence so
commanding, while rightly directed, that they
need wish for no higher authority. To " labor
in the word and doctrine," is to rule pre-
eminently well, and gives the teaching elder
who does it a special title to " be counted
worthy of double honor." " Preaching is a
principal part of governing, and Christ himself
ruleth his Church by his Word."

It is something admirable that our forefathers
should stamp such an independent character
upon each particular church and its ministry.
In so doing they rose above all the prejudices of
education, and surmounted the whole force of
public opinion in their times. Though born in
an age of hierarchies, and bred under one
themselves, they made no attempt to imitate
the system here. What was there to hinder
them from constituting a new hierarchy here
wqth the potent John Cotion at its head ? What
was there to prevent them from endowing their
churches with vast territorial possessions en-
tailed upon them forever ? They did nothing of

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 165

the kind ; thoug-h they had purchased to them-
selves a right to do so if they chose, by banish-
ing themselves to the wilderness for the express
purpose of doing as they chose. But no man
would have resisted more strenuously than Mr.
Cotton himself, the attempt to confer upon him
the least official supremacy above his brethren.
We find him refusing to be supported in any
other way, than by voluntary contribution, the
free-will offerings of his people.^

Following the Scripture rules and precedents,
our fathers declared for the equality of all
churches, the equality of all church members,
and the equality of all church ministers. That
" liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free,"
could have no stronger safeguards.

SECTION III.

NATURE AND FORMS OF PUBLIC W^ORSHIP.

The principal part of this duty is prayer, with
its proper adjuncts of praise and confession.
Our fathers held, that " true prayer is the work
of God's Spirit in our hearts, teaching and ena-

# Winthrop's Hist. I. p. 12L

166 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

bling^ us to pour out our souls unto God in all
necessities and occasions." On this account,
they held that prayer should be free; not
restricted to set forms and prescribed liturgies, to
be used compulsorily at all times of devotion.
They found neither Christ nor his apostles
requiring any invariable forms of prayer. From
this John Cotton argued, that there is "no expe-
diency thereof to the edification of the church ;
unless it might be presumed, that there is some
help, or means, of God's worship expedient to
the edification of the Church, which never came
into the heajt of Christ and of his apostles to
commend unto the Church." * To exact the
constant use of a " stinted liturgy " when Christ
exacted it not, our fathers regarded as a direct
usurpation of Christ's kingly office, by imposing
conditions of membership and ministry in his
Church which he never decreed.

Such a liturgy, they said, was the lethargy of
worship. It is not to be wondered at, that they
sometimes spoke harshly of it, when stung to
desperation by tyrannous and cruel attempts to
force them, under the severest penalties, to read
or hear it. " Oppression maketh a wise man
mad."

♦ A Modest and Clear Answer, &c.. ch. 1.

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 167

The Puritan divines could find no trace of
such liturgies for the first three centuries of the
Christian era. They found that the compilation
of them owed its origin to the wretched ignorance
of many of the clergy, who, being incapable of
properly discharging this duty, had forms of
prayer drawn up for their use. Such forms, the
Puritans regarded as crutches for the Jame ; and
were willing that the lame should use them.
But they knew no reason why these instruments,
however handsomely turned or richly adorned,
should be forced upon such as were not lame
enough to need them. Thus in a speech made
in 1641, in the house of peers, by Lord Viscount
Say and Seal, that noble Puritan says ;— " This
injunction of such forms upon all men turns that
which, in the beginning, necessity brought in for
the help of insufficiency, to be now the continu-
ance and maintenance of insufficiency, and a
bar to the exercise of able and sufficient gifts and
graces ; as if, because some men had need to
make use of crutches, all men should be prohib-
ited the use of their legs, and enjoined to take
up such crutches as have been prepared for those
who had no logs ! "

The service-book having been mostly transla-
ted from the Latin missal used by the Romish
priests, was the occasion of much stumblino- at it

168 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

by the Puritans. Even King James once
described it as "an ill-said mass in English."
The reason given by the compilers of the com-
mon-prayer for retaining so much of the Romish
book, was a wish to conciliate the Papists, as
much as possible, to the Protestant w^orship.
And even Bishop Stillingfleet could once argue,
that what \yas merely " laid as a bait " for the
Papists, could never have been intended " as an
hook for those of our own profession." But a
hook they found it ! and so keenly barbed, that
it was not without much laceration that they
disengaged it from their bleeding mouths.

They could never be reconciled to that which
became the instrument of so much civil and relig-
ious despotism. They could never succumb to
the pretensions of any set of men to dictate to all
other men, even in distant regions and future
centuries, with what petitions they should ap-
proach the throne of grace, and in what terms
they shall address their Heavenly Father. To
prescribe a form, they said, was stopping the
course of God's Spirit, and muzzling the mouth
of prayer. What can be more contrary to the
free and fetterless spirit of New Testament wor-
ship, than thus to confine it to sluggish canals,
with formal locks for reaching a measured ele-
vation ; instead of permitting it to flow in its

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 169

natural channels as marked out by the finger of
Providence, and filled by the Spirit of God ? As
well might we attempt to give an artificial out-
line to the flames upon the altar, and seek to fix
them in one unvarying shape.

The inconveniences of being lied up to such a
ritual were curiously illustrated during the
struggle between James II. and the Prince of
Orange. Though the body of the clergy favored
the side of William and Mary, they were obli-
ged to follow the liturgy, which the Archbishop,
engrossed as he was by political duties, had not
time to alter. The poor ministers had to keep
on praying for their most dread and sovereign
liege-lord. King James, that " God would con-
found the devices of his enemies." This was
hard, both on them and the public : on them, as
being forced to pray against their own wishes ;
and on the public, because the nation would have
been ruined, if their prayers had been accepted.=^
During the American Revolution, it came to pass,
that nearly every Episcopal meeting-house in the
colonies was closed. Their ministers, inclined
as they were to principles of monarchy, both in
Church and State, could not vary from the pre-
scribed forms of prayer : and the people, filled

* Life and Times of Dr Edmund Calamy. L 20L
VOL. I. 15

170 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

with the spirit of liberty, could not endure the
petitions for king George, which those unaltera-
ble forms required.

No one form of prayer can be ample enough to
express all the wants of the Church. It was well
said by one good man ; — " If I had a prayer-book
which contained all my wants, it would be so
large, that I should be obliged to carry it about
on a wheel-barrow ! "

In other parts of worship, such as singing the
praises of God, and the preaching of his Word,
our fathers had little that was peculiar to them-
selves. The sacraments of baptism and the
Lord's Supper, they regarded as signs or
emblems of the highest spiritual truths. In
administering the sacraments, they used a plain-
ness and simplicity, agreeable to the Scriptural
patterns, and such as showed that they were but
signs. A pompous and imposing ceremonial
tends to confine the mind of the worshiper to
the sacrament, as if it might have some virtue or
saving efficacy in itself. But the more simple
celebration constrains the worshiper to feel that
these sacred things, after all, are only signs;
and thus the soul is led to look through them,
and beyond them to that which is signified. Such
observance is the most spiritual, and is best

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 171

adapted to secure the great ends of the sacra-
ments of grace and life.

Thus have we briefly surveyed the outlines of
that godly discipline, which our fathers model-
ed after the pattern in the mount. The lapse
of two centuries has suggested no material
improvement, no closer approach to the primitive
and apostolical plan. This building of God
goes bravely on. Founded on the Rock of
Ages, it lifts apace its rising walls, and heightens
all its towers, standing in massive and enduring
strength.

And when the millennial sun shall rise in
cloudless glory, the fair fabric shall front the
rejoicing East. Its gold, and silver, and precious
stones shall reflect in mild radiance the intenscr
blaze of the ascending orb. Each stately pillar
and graceful arch shall glow with the living
light of heaven. From its open gates of lucid
pearl shall burst the choral songs, which tell
that God, — God in the fullness of his bliss,— -is
there.

172 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON

CHAPTER VII.

The merits of Congregationalism. Paul's defence of himself against
the charsre of heresy. Application of it to the Puritans. Restora-
tion of Christ's kingship in the Church. John Cook quoted. Re-
capitulation. Subject divided. I. Antiquity of the Congregational
way. Study of antiquity. Excessive deference paid to the old
Eccleaiastical writers. Uncertainty of Pairistical traditions, illus-
trated by more recent instances. Remnants of the earliest fathers
characterized. Retort of Irish convert. King Jamie's maxim.
Luther's estimate of the " fathers." Lord Bacon's estimate.
King James again. The sacred writers the best church antiquari-
ans. John Wilkes' retort. Luther's retort. John Cotton's opin-
ion. His opinion sanctioned by candid Romanists. What if we
had lived in the third century ? Connecticut ministers. II. Cath-
olicism. What it is. S. Mather. Dr. Owen. J. Cotton. Prot-
estation of Puritans. Two divines. Open communion, the
Congregational practice. I. Mather. Cambridge Platform. J.
Cotton. Gov. Winslow. John Higginson. Jonathan Mitchell.
Massachusetts pastors to John Dnry. Variety in unity preferable
to mere uniformity. III. Spirituality. Congregationalism conge-
nial to the "free spirit" of the gospel. Spirit and forms. Milton;
Barrowe. Conder. Practical tendencies of Congregationalism.
Promotes liberality. Cherishes public spirit. Favorable to liber-
ty. Excites free inquiry. John Robinson. John Norton. J.
Winslow. J. Cotton. Relation of Church and State. " The wis-
est of the best." Failures and successes of the Puritans.

The apostle Paul was once pleading in his own
defence before Felix. It was a critical hour, and
his life hung- upon the event. The Jewish
priests, by their hired advocate, TertuUus, had

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 173

charged the Apostle as being a mover of sedition
against the imperial authority, and as being a
ringleader, or literally a front-rank man, of the
sect of the Nazarenes. On these grounds, they
demanded that he should be adjudged to death.

The Apostle, in his reply, first disposed of the
unfounded charge of sedition. He then pro-
ceeded to discuss the accusation, that he was a
prominent leader among the Nazarenes, which
was one of the earliest names by which the fol-
lowers of Jesus were known. " But this I con-
fess unto thee, that after the way which they
call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers."
While he thus frankly owns himself to be a
Nazarene, he makes the acknowledgment in such
a way as to take off all culpability from the fact.
For he alledges, that, as a Nazarene, he worships
none other than the God of his fathers ; and this
was a privilege which had been secured to the
Jews by several of the edicts and charters of the
Roman emperors. He was thus entitled to the
protection of the law. He not only affirms that
he was a worshiper of the God of Abraham, but
that he believed the whole canon of the Jewish
Scriptures ; and, like the mass of that people,
had a firm hope of a general resurrection.

The invidious name of sect or heresy, which
the high-church party among the Jews applied
15=^

174 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

to the Nazarenes, means strictly a taking up, —
a taking up with any new-fang-led opinions.
This charge the Apostle could very sincerely
deny. For the Holy Ghost had taught him that
Christianity was nothing else but Judaism
brought to its full perfection. Judaism was the
acorn, whose ceremonial shell concealed the fu-
ture oak. It was the germ which contained all
the rudiments, as yet undeveloped, of the broad,
umbrageous tree. The advent of Christ was the
germination which burst the henceforth useless
shell ; and started the rapid growth of that tree
of life, beneath whose wide and sheltering shad-
ow the gathered nations of the earth should sit.
In the process of centuries, this monarch of
the forest had nearly lost its natural growth. It
was overgrown with strangling vines, and with
parasites which wasted its vigor, and with nox-
ious grafts of a nature contrary to its own. The
refonners of the sixteenth century, set themselves
to work as God's husbandmen, to clear away
this cumbrous mass of foreign vegetation. The
Church of God in England, one chief limb, was
purged to a great extent : but it remained for our
Puritan fathers, in the following century, to
complete the work, and to present at least one
living branch of the ancient tree restored to its

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

175

pristine state, and flourishing in its own natural
and beauteous growth.

But to drop this parable, our fathers when they
went on to perfect their ecclesiastical reform,
were assailed by all the forces of the hierarchy.
High priests and lower priests loudly accused
them before Csesar's tribunals of heresy and sec-
tarism. To this invidious charge the accused
could reply with the Apostle :— " But this I con-
fess unto thee, that after the way which they
call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers."
After the first English reformers had restored
the prophetical and priestly offices of Christ, our
forefathers conceived that the kingly office of
Christ still remained to be restored. They
sought to reform the government, as well as the
doctrine, of the Church. They maintained that
ordinances of man's invention are no more to be
mixed up with what Christ has instituted as
King, than man's dogmas are to be blended with
his teachings as the great Prophet of Israel, or
than man's works and merits are to be mingled
with his atonement as the High Priest of our

profession.

Their views were well expressed in a tract
printed in 1647, by John Cook, of Gray's Inn,
Barrister: from which a few quotations will be
offered. " The question, truly stated, is but this,

176 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

Whether the inventions of men ought any more
to be mixed with the institutions of Christ in his
Kingly office, than their good works in his
Priestly office." An Independent " is content to
be every man's servant, so as Christ may but
reign over his conscience, which if He should
not, we know not where he is to reign." " He
depends not on any but Christ Jesus the Head,
in point of canon and command, for spiritual
matters. Concerning the discipline of Christ's
Church, he does no more depend upon man than
concerning the doctrine ; and counts it the most
glorious sight in the world, to see Jesus Christ
walk as King, ruling by the sceptre of his Word
in the midst of his golden candlesticks." " He
will not be beaten but by Scripture weapons :
and in reading Scriptures, neither stretches
things wider, nor draws them narrower than
God has made them." We give one extract
more. " He judges Christ's Kingdom to be only
there where His laws are in force ; for that
county is no part of a prince's dominion which
is not regulated by his laws."^

True to these principles, the " Reformists"
sought, with scrupulous care, to restore the prim-

♦ A reprint of this sententious tract may be found in the third vol-
ume of Hambury's Historical Memorials relating to the Independ-
ents, &c.

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 177

itive and apostolical order of church administra-
tion.

In the preceding chapter we gave a brief
sketch of the main features of that church gov-
ernment which our fathers deduced and adopted
from the Bible. We showed, that they held each
local church or covenanted congregation, to have
entire spiritual jurisdiction within itself, to be
fully competent to its own government by the
rules of God's Word, and to be no ways depend-
ent on other churches, except for reciprocal acts
of kindness and assistance, as one hand may help
another. We showed that they considered min-
isters of the gospel to be all equal in respect to
official rank; to be elected and called by the
Church to that great work ; and to labor therein
according to the instructions of the Bible, and
not according to the dictates of men. Owning
Christ as supreme Lord and Master, and all his
disciples as free and equal subjects of his power,
they looked upon the visible Church as an abso-
lute monarchy democratically administered. We
also exhibited their views of public worship, —
that it should be simple in its character, and
chiefly marked by unfettered freedom and high
spirituality.

And now we present for consideration the

178 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

merits of this ancient, catholic and scriptural sys-
tem of ecclesiastical discipline.

SECTION I.

THE ANTIQUITY OF THE CONGREGATIONAL WAY.

Far be it from us to slight the authority of
antiquity, provided it be of the highest kind ;
namely, the oldest of which the case admits.
Our pilgrim-sires contended, that their order was
no newer than the New Testament : and that it
was old enough to be coeval with Christ and his
apostles, from whom it originated.

The mind takes a pleasure in coming into
contact with things remote. It delights to travel
back into the distant ages of the past, tracing up
usages to their origin, and standing at the far off
fountains from whence the streams of custom
have come rolling down to our times. These
pilgrimages of the mind amid the vestiges and
monuments of perished centuries are full of
pleasure and profit.

" Nor rough and barren are the winding ways
Of hoar antiquity, but strewn with flowers."

But there is no study which requires more

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 179

plain and practical good sense. Imaginative
minds become, as it were, spell-bound by the
venerable aspect of the past; and under its
wizard-wand, lose the power of discriminating
between veritable truth and monastic fabling,
between actual occurrences and legendary lore.
It requires great soundness of judgment to trav-
erse the dim vista of ages almost unstoried,
where the solemn shapes loom up with awful
port, " and frowning in the uncertain dawn of
time," subdue the soul with a superstitious rever-
ence. To reduce these shadowy forms to their
real dimensions requires a keen-eyed caution and
strong-minded solidity, which have not been the
endowments of every enthusiastic scholar. One
of the most laborious and sensible of England's
older antiquarians has said ; — " Abating only
Holy Writ, it is as impossible to find antiquity
without fable, as an old face without wrinkles."
As to the fathers of the church, as they are
called, or the ancient ecclesiastical writers, it is
not easy to see any good ground for the defer-
ence which has been paid to their authority in
theological questions. Especially when we con-
sider how easy it is on any such question to
quote fathers against fathers, and councils against
councils, it is strange to observe the respect
which has been paid to the contradictory respon-

180 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

ses of these ambiguous oracles. Neither the
Church nor any of its members in those earlier
times had any promises of supernatural aid and
guidance, more than the Church and its members
may have now. Nor had they any more right
to decree for our observance, articles which
Christ never sanctioned, than we have to do such
a thing for them that shall live a thousand years
hence.

It is said, that the Greek and Latin fathers are
valuable witnesses as to the belief and practice
of their own times, and so they are. But it is
not from their times, nor from any times except
those of the apostles, that we are to take our
pattern.

It has been said too, that, as these antiquated
authors lived nearer to the apostolic age than we,
they must have preserved a nearer and more
correct tradition of what the apostles did. But
let us take a case with which we are familiar.
It is not two hundred years since the first set-
tlers of New England were living. They have
been succeeded by five or six generations of their
descendants, an educated people, deeply inter-
ested in the events of that period, and abounding
in printed books relating to it. Now suppose we
were to go about among our people, collecting
all the traditionary information which remains

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 181

among them, relative to the affairs and practices
of the first settlers of this soil. Can any one be-
lieve, that out of the materials so amassed, the
web of an accurate and veritable history could
be woven ? It is certain that a narrative drawn
up from such sources of information must abound
in gross mistakes and absurd fabrications.

What reliance, then, can be placed upon tra-
ditions received by men who lived and wrote
two hundred years after the apostles : — traditions
preserved among a people of whom the mass
was exceedingly ignorant and unintelligent ; and
of whom the superior part was by no means
marvelously enlightened. The credibility of
such traditions, to which the art of printing had
not rendered its important aid, must ever be
extremely suspicious. Take a case nearer our
own day, drawn

" From that Brabantine field.
The proudest field of fame."

The battle of Waterloo was the most eventful
passage of arms which has been decided for many
a long century. For historical purposes it is
important to know at what hour of the day, that
fearful strife of embattled nations began. And
yet of all the numerous actors in the scene who
have attempted to narrate the order of its events,
VOL. I. 16

182 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

scarce two agree as touching that one simple
matter of fact. How vague and unsatisfactory,
then, must be any uninspired tradition, especially
if it have been long unwritten ? The reflecting
mind cannot content itself with such dubious au-
thority in matters of the highest moment. And
why should it seek contentment there, when the
apostles themselves, " moved by the Holy Ghost,"
committed to infallible records all the traditions
which they wished to hand down to the success-
ive ages of the church ? '^

The writings of the fathers were extravagantly
over-estimated in their own times, and ever since.
Read the remains which have come down to us
from the apostolic age. The largest of these are
the epistle of Barnabas, the fellow laborer of St.
Paul ; and the " Shepherd " of Hermas, the
same, perhaps, to whom St. Paul addressed a
salutation in the last chapter of his epistle to the
Romans ; and the epistle of Clement, also sa-
luted in the same chapter. Whoever expects to
find in these pieces much of the Pauline stamp
of thought and diction, will be sadly disappoint-
ed. The epistle of Barnabas is a tedious and
tasteless affair, full of poor and senseless con-
ceits, and absurd allegories. As for the " Shep-

*2The83. 2: 15, and 3: G.

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 183

herd" of Hermas, if any one were to read it,
without knowing but what it might be some
modern production, he would throw it aside as
the scribbling of some miserable driveler. The
epistle of Clement the Roman, addressed to the
Corinthian Church, is a moderately respectable
performance ; but, in respect to richness of gos-
pel truth and evangelic fervor, immeasurably
inferior to the epistles of St. Paul to the same
Christian community. In reading these writings
of men whom the apostles had known and
taught, we cannot but feel the conviction deep-
ened, that it was the inspiration of God which
enabled the apostles to teach in a strain of doc-
trine and argument at least a whole heaven
above these their disciples and followers.

If we learn from these earliest fathers so lit-
tle, indeed nothing, in addition to what instruc-
tion the New Testament gives, we may well
give up the expectation of being made much
wiser by the study of the vast and voluminous
remains of the later fathers. When the Romish
priest objected to the Irish convert to protestant-
ism, that he was not acquainted with the opin-
ions of the fathers, it was wisely retorted by the
latter, that he had done what was milch better ;
he had prayerfully studied the grandfathers, —
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. He who has

184 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

informed himself of the low state of education
and literature during the centuries which pre-
ceded the Protestant reformation, will hardly
persuade himself that the authors of those times
are fit to be the teachers of the nineteenth cen-
tury. Their traditions will have no weight
whatever. Even that royal sophomore, James
I., had sense enough to say; — "In all usages
and precedents, let the times be considered
wherein they first began ; which [times] if they
be weak or ignorant, it derogateth from the au-
thority of the usage, and leaveth it for suspect."
According to this principle, the fathers will be
but dubious guides. A more thorough and sys-
tematic view of the doctrines and duties of
Christianity can be derived from the volumes of
Dr. Dwight, than from all the ponderous tomes
of Chrysostom, and the huge lumbering folios of
Aug-ustine beside.

It is true that the works of the later fathers,
who lived when the primitive simplicity was
lost from sight amid the accumulating inven-
tions of superstitious or aspiring men, are gener-
ally favorable to hierarchy and its proud
pretensions. But the few genuine documents
which have descended to us from the first three
centuries, fully substantiate the Congregational-
ism of the Puritans. And this explains the

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 185

treatment which the ancient writers have re-
ceived from the divines of the Anglican Church.
That treatment led Chillingworth to say, that
" those divines account the fathers to be fathers
when they are for them, and children when
they are against them." Martin Luther, who
was learned in this sort of lore, was so perplexed
by the many discrepancies and puerile fancies
which abound in those old ecclesiastical writers,
that he cast them aside in despair. He once
said ; — " When God's Word is by the fathers
expounded, construed and glossed, then, in my
judgment, it is even like to one that straineth
milk through a coal-sack, which must needs
spoil and make the milk black." In five differ-
ent places of Lord Bacon's works, he repeats the
sentiment ; — " Time seemeth to be of the nature
of a river or flood, that bringeih down to us that
which is light or blown up, and sinketh and
drowneth that which is soHd and grave." Were
it not for his lordship's charity, he might have
felt some suspicions, that antiquity, after all, has
sent down to us the best it had.

The Puritans were too stiff-kneed to succumb
to the decisions of uninspired men, whether an-
cient or modern. But they were ready to bring
their church polity to the test of antiquity, pro-
vided it should be the oldest antiquity of all. In
16=^

1S6 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

reply to such as imagined that their churches
dropped out of the clouds some time in the six-
teenth century, they could adopt the language
of King James at the Hampton Court Confer-
ence ; — " I know not how to answer the objec-
tions of papists, when they charge us with
novelties, but by telling them, that we retain the
primitive use of things, and only forsake their
novel corruptions."

And truly, if antiquity is to decide the point,
let us go back of the old writers to the older
Bible. The Acts of the Apostles is a far purer
and more ancient record than the most antiqua-
ted of the church histories ; and the apostolical
epistles are far safer and more venerable docu-
ments than the mustiest relics of what school-
men and churchmen have penned. Why should
we examine the subject of the Church's consti-
tution by the feeble tapers of human wisdom,
when we may bring it at once to the sun-light of
revelation. If you were suffering from a pain-
ful disease, and the physician were to offer you
a vast variety of remedies, of which some would
help you a little, and others would help you
more ; and if he were to hold out one which
would afford instant and permanent relief, would
you not promptly reject the others, and insist
upon receiving that which will give immediate

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 187

health and soundness ? And why should we be
dallying with the fathers, when the blessed
Bible SO far exceeds them in every thing in
which they can be supposed to benefit us ?
Well has it been said by a living divine ; —
" The Bible is older than the fathers, — truer
than traditions, — wiser than councils, — more
learned than universities, — more orthodox than
creeds, — more infallible than popes, — more au-
thoritative than priests, — more powerful than
ceremonies, — more reliable for the world's sal-
vation than any thing or every thing else under
the heavens."

When the Papist asks the Congregational-
ist ; — " Where was your church before the Pu-
ritans set it up ? " we might answer as John
Wilkes, the celebrated sheriff of Middlesex, did
in a similar case. He retorted on the Papist ; —
" Sir, did you wash your face this morning ? "
The Papist answered, somewhat sullenly, in the
affirmative. " Well then," rejoined the witty
sheriff, "where was your face before it was
washed ? " This question was shrewdly put :
for let the popish corruptions be thoroughly
washed off, and the popish pollutions be purged
away, and the fair face of the Church will re-
appear in its primeval beauty. Or we may
answer briefly with Luther to the priest who

188 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

scornfully asked ; — " Where was your Church
during so many long centuries ? " To whom
the bold reformer promptly replied ; — " My
Church was where yours never was, — in the
Bible ! " Holding fast this inviolable charter of
the city of God, we may appeal from men who
reject us, to God who owns us. We may
appeal in the language of the prophet; —
" Doubtless thou art our Father, though Abra-
ham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge
us not : thou, 0 Lord, art our Father, our Re-
deemer; thy name is from everlasting."

Nothing can be more sound than John Cot-
ton's remark ; — " That must be true which was
primitive ; and that must be primitive which is
from the beginning. There is no false way," he
adds, "but what is an aberration from the first
institution." He followed this principle till it
led him to say ; — " The way of Independency
hath been bred in the womb of the New Testa-
ment of the immortal seed of the Word of truth,
and received in the times of the purest primitive
antiquity.""^ He looked upon no other mode of
ecclesiastical discipline to be " so ancient as the
way of our Congregational government of each
church within itself, by the space of three hun-

♦ Way ofCongregalional Churches, p. 9, 164S.

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 1S9

dred years. Con^egational discipline was insti-
tuted by Christ and his apostles. '"^ This opinion
is sanctioned by some of the best informed histo-
rians in the communion of the Church of Rome.
Of this, any one may find sufficient proof in the
authorities cited by Moshein. To these may be
added the testimony of the monastic writers
of church history, known as the Magdeburg
Centuriators. " But, whoever will look through
the approved authors of this age, will see that
the form of government was quite democratical.
For individual churches had equal power, as to
purely teaching the Word of God, administering
th& sacraments, excommunicating heretics and
offenders, choosing, calling, ordaining, and for
just reasons deposing again, their ministers, and
assembling conventions and synods."! DuPin,
a doctor of the Sorbonne, and a man of rare
learning and candor, speaking of the first three
centuries, acknowledges in general that the mode
of church government was altogether of a popu-
lar cast ; and then adds ; — "• After all, it must be
confessed, that the discipline of the church has
been so extremely different, and so often altered,
that it is almost impossible to say any thing pos-

* Way of Congregational Churches, pp. 93,94. Also Prop. I., in
survey of Church Discipline.

t II Cent. Chapter 7. Title, De Consociatione Ecclesiarum.

190 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

itively concerning it."^ The hierarchal way of
ruling is most evidently not aboriginal in the
church, but is the fruit of antiquated changes.

Why, then, should we cling to practices which,
however antiquated, were in their origin innova-
tions upon the pristine usage. " An error by
continuance of time can never become a truth,
but only the more inveterate error." Suppose
that, with our present views and feelings, all
Christendom were to urge some novelty upon us
for our adoption — should we feel under the
slightest obligations to adopt it ? Certainly we
should not. But suppose that, with the same
correct views and feelings which we now have
on the subject, we had lived in the third or fourth
centuries ; when so many hierarchal novelties
were introduced and imposed : — should we have
felt obligated to submit to them then ? We cer-
tainly should not. Why then should we submit
to the same things now ? They were innova-
tions when they were first introduced, and they
have been mere innovations ever since. Our
stal-vvort sires trampled them in the dust, and
strode ruthlessly over them all, that they might
plant their feet upon the rock of truth, that rock
of prhiiitive formation. They were solicitous

* Biblioth. Patrum. Tom. III., Cent. III., p 183.

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 191

to base the fabric of their churches on none but
a scriptural antiquity : for they knew that the
Word of God is not only ancient of days, but
that it " abideth forever." They embraced the
maxim of Peter Martyr, admitting " nothing*
without, nothing against, nothing beside, nothing
beyond, the divine Scripture."

A recent writer, who has treated these sub-
jects with consummate ability, tells us truly, that
" this has ever been the great principle of Puri-
tanism : that God's Word is the sole and suffi-
cient standard of faith and duty." Nearly a
century after the landing of the Pilgrims, an as-
sembly of Connecticut ministers, in setting forth
their general assent to the Savoy Confession of
Faith, as containing the system of doctrine which
they embraced, — deemed it important to preface
that act and confession with these words, worthy
to be written in broad letters of living light.
" We do not assume to ourselves that any thing
is to be taken upon trust from us, but commend
to our people the following counsels : 1. That
you be immovably and unchangeably agreed in
the only sufficient and invariable rule of religion,
which is THE Holy Scripture, the fixed canon,
incapable of addition or diminution. You ought

TO ACCOUNT NOTHING ANCIENT THAT WILL NOT
STAND BY THIS RULE ; AND NOTHING NEW THAT

192 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

WILL. 2. That you be determined by this rule
in the whole of religion. That your faith be
right and divine, the Word of God must be the
foundation of it, and the authority of the Word the
reason of it.'"^ Such noble advices will never
be heard from the lips of the assertors of priestly
power. Their only study is to circumscribe the
rights of the people, and restrain them from that
use of "private judgment," which God requires
of every accountable being.

SECTION II.

THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCH GOVERNMENT AS
RESPECTS CATHOLICITY.

By catholicity is meant that generous and lov-
ing spirit, by which every Christian embraces, in
the arms of his charity, every other Christian as
a brother in the Lord. The true apostolical
Catholicism rejoices in the unity of the spirit,
rather than in the unity of outward forms. It
fondly cherishes a union of hearts, even where
there may be little uniformity of practices. It is
like the law of vegetative life, which is the same

*The Piirilaiis and iheir Principleii, by Rev. E. Hall, 8vo., 1846,
p. irx).

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 193

in all plants, and marks them as the subjects of
one and the same kingdom ; and yet developes
itself in an endless variety of production. It has
been eloquently said ; — " The productions which
adorn the paradise of God, from the loftiest ce-
dar of Lebanon, to the lowliest plant which
flourishes beneath its shade, are all pervaded by
the same great principle of spiritual life ; are all
sustained by the same influences of heaven and
of earth ; all imbibe living moisture from the
same dew and shower ; and rejoice in the genial
radiance of the same celestial sunshine : but
they, at the same time, present endless varieties
of form and structure, of fruit and flower, of leaf
and fragrance."

Now the catholic spirit of the gospel manifests
itself by recognizing the same spirit wherever
found, and however diversified the aspect it wears.
With false and anti-christian churches, it has
nothing to do. Its repugnance to them is as
strong as its attraction toward every evangelical
communion. Hatred of heresy is a twin flower
with love of truth. They bloom on a common
stalk. But while the brotherly love of the gos-
pel shrinks, like the sensitive plant, from the
hateful contact of soul-destroying errors, it unfolds
all its leaves to the congenial breath of purity.
" We reckon it our distinguishing honor," writes

VOL. I. 17

194 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

Samuel Mather, " that, of all the reformed church-
es, we are the most distant from the church of
Rome, and the most conformed to the churches
in the days of the apostles and of primitive Christ-
ianity."

As respects this genuine catholicity, the Con-
gregational churches may affectionately invite
comparison with their sister-churches of other
names. And this comparison is invited, not as
challenging an invidious superiority in this or
any other point of excellence ; but as kindly
craving their own proper dues.

Dr. Owen and our fathers took an open and
honest stand. " Unless," say they, " men can
prove that we have not the spirit of God, that we
do not savingly believe in Jesus Christ ; that we
do not sincerely love all the saints, his whole
body and every member of it ; they cannot dis-
prove our interest in the Catholic Church.""^
Our fathers regarded their communion as one
purified branch of the true church catholic.
This was the extent of their modest claim.
They did not pretend to unchurch other commu-
nions. They did not pretend, that they had an
exclusive monopoly of covenant blessings. They
asserted nothing more than a right to regard

♦ John Owen, D. D., "OfSchism," &c. chap. IV., sec 19.

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 195

themselves as one province of the kingdom of
Christ, in which their Lord's laws were more
strictly enforced than elsewhere. Listen to the
declaration of John Cotton ;— " We cannot but
conceive the churches in England were rightly
gathered, and planted according to the rule of
the gospel : and all the corruptions found in them
since, have sprung from popish apostacy in suc-
ceeding ages, and from want of thorough and
perfect purging out of that leaven, in the late
times of Reformation in the days of our fathers.
So that all the work now, is not to make them
churches which were none before, but to reduce
and restore them to their primitive institution." ^
The treatise from which this is quoted, though
prepared by Mr. Cotton, appears to contain the
results of his brethren's deliberations. From
this, and innumerable other ^testimonies of the
same character, it is evident, that our fathers
were equally ready to assert their own rights,
and to admit the just rights of others, to a place
in the house of God.

In the time of James L, in a pamphlet called
" A Protestation of the King's Supremacy, made
in the Name of the afflicted Ministers, &c.," the
demands of the Puritans were thus expressed.

* " Way of the Churches in New England, &c., p. Ill"

196 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

** All that we crave of his majesty and the State,
is, that with his and their permission, it may be
lawful for us to worship God according to His
revealed will ; that we may not be forced to the
observance of any human rites and ceremonies.
So long as it shall please the king and parlia-
ment to maintain the hierarchy or prelacy in
this kingdom, we are content that they enjoy
their state and dignity : and we will live as
brethren among the ministers that acknowledge
spiritual homage to the spiritual lordships, paying
them all temporal duties of tithes, and joining
with them in the service and worship of God so
far as we may, without our own particular com-
municating in those human traditions which we
judge unlawful.'"^ Two distinguished divines,
during a process against them for non-conformity,
sent a letter to tl^e Archbishop and the other
ecclesiastical members of the High Commission,
in which occurs the following language ; — " Con-
science is a tender thing, and all men cannot
look upon the same thing as indifferent ; if,
therefore, these habits seem so to you, you are
not to be cmideimied by us ; on the other hand,
if they do not appear so to us, we ought not to
be vexed by you. " t

* Cited in Neale's History, Part I., chap. 1.
tib. Parin.,chap. 4.

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 197

In matters of this nature, the Congregational
churches not only profess catholic principles, but
practice them. And a square-foot of perform-
ance is worth an acre of profession. Thus our
churches lovingly receive the members of other
evangelical churches to occasional, and even sta-
ted communion at the Lord's table, and in other
religious ordinances. We receive such members
into our own churches without rebapiism : and
their ministers without reordination. We cordi-
ally unite with them in associated effort to extend
the Redeemer's kingdom on the earth. Our men
and our means have contributed to the gathering
of thousands of churches which are attached to
other denominations. What more could we do
to evince a catholic spirit of fraternal union with
all who " hold the Head, from which all the body,
by joints and bands having nourishment minis-
tered, and knit together, increaseth with the
increase of God ? "

Our churches, in respect to Catholicity, will
compare to great advantage with other religious
communities. These, in general, will not suffer
any to enter, or to continue among them, espe-
cially ministers, unless they will conform to
every practice, however unessential, or however
inconsistent with scripture rule. But we, on the
contrary, are ready to receive from them, without
17=^

198 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

rebaptism or reordination, all whom Christ has
received. We exact no conditions of them but
what Christ has required. We demand their
assent only to such points as all evangelical
Christians admit to be vital to the faith, and fun-
damental to salvation. In minor points, every
one is left to the liberty of his conscience, and to
the freedom of his own judgment : " admitting,"
as Dr. Increase Mather has said, " of all those,
though in different persuasions about lesser
points, of whom it may be judged, in reasonable
charity, that Christ has received them to the
glory of God." To which he adds this impres-
sive remark ; — " Our foundation is in these holy
mountains ! " ^

This is that chief grace of charity which bids
us to " love alike, though we do not understand
alike." It teaches us to exercise the mild judg-
ment of Christian love in the reception of such
as are weak in the faith. The Cambridge Plat-
form directs, that " such charity and tenderness
is to be used, as the weakest Christian, if sin-
cere, may not be excluded nor discouraged.
Severity of examination is to be avoided."!
Dr. Samuel Mather says ; — " My great grand-
father, the holy and learned Mr. Cotton, once

* "Elijah's Mantle," p. 16.
t Chap. XII , sec. 3.

LIFE OP JOHN COTTON. 199

said to his congregation, that, if any person,
though a poor Indian, should step forth and say,
' I love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity and
truth,' and should testify his willingness to walk
according to the gospel, though his defects were
great for ignorance and the like, he should be
for admitting him to the Lord's table."

The liberal character of Congregationalism is
opposed to a strenuous pressing of uniformity.
The rules of outward uniformity must bend,
when necessary, to the maxims of spiritual
unity : even as the precepts of the ceremonial
law gave way, when they occasionally conflicted
with the requirements of the moral law. "We
require no man," says Mr. Cotton, " to swear to
our church government : nor ever did, that I
know. Neither do we so much as require,
that they should profess their approbation of our
government." "^ These sentiments of one whom
Dr. Goodwin calls " that apostle of his age," are
sanctioned by his fellow-laborers and fellow-suf-
ferers. Thus in Winslow's " Brief Narration,"
numerous examples are given of free communion
as practiced by the Leyden, Plymouth and Mas-
sachusetts churches, in their intercourse with
other reformed churches. " For we ever placed,"

* Holinease of Church Members, p. 29.

200 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

he says, " a large difference between those that
grounded their practice on the Word of God,
though differing from us in the exposition or un-
derstanding of it, and those that hated such
Reformers and Reformation, and went on in
anti-christian opposition to it and persecution of
it.'"^ Those good men felt that they, so far as
it rested with them, were in full communion
with all that was right anywhere in the Christ-
ian world. As they phrased it, they were " for
every reformed church, so far as it is reformed."
They steadily repudiated the charge, so indus-
triously alledged against them, of being sepa-
ratists. Said the excellent John Higginson of
Salem, when preaching the annual election ser-
mon in 1663 ; — " The end of our coming hither
was a reformation only of what was amiss or
defective in the churches we came from : from
which we made no separation, but a local seces-
sion only into this wilderness, with true desires
and endeavors after a more full reformation ac-
cording to God's Word."t In the same dis-
course, he affirms ; — " This was, and is, our
cause, that Christ alone might be acknowledged
by us, as the only Head, Lord, and Lawgiver in
his Church ; that his written Word might be

* Young's Chronicles, p. 391.

t The Cause of God and hia People, p. 11.

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 201

acknowledged as the only rule ; that only and
all his institutions might be observed and en-
joyed by us ; and that with purity and liberty,
with peace and power." ^ In carrying out this
design, our fathers distinguished between things
necessary, and such as were in their nature
indifferent. So Higginson, on the same occa-
sion, taught ; — " In matters divine, where we
have a clear command, with Moses, we must
not yield an hoof : but in matters human, stand-
ing upon extreme right may prove to be extreme
wrong." t

Jonathan Mitchell, a kindred spirit, preached
the annual election sermon for 1667. He then
took occasion to remark ; — " The good old non-
conformists were very zealous for reformation,
and yet always steadfast enemies to separation :
those two may well consist, and they left us a
good example therein." I So too John Norton,
and all the other Massachusetts pastors, in their
letter to Mr. Dury, have said ; — " We chose
rather to depart into the remote and unknown
coasts of the earth, for the sake of a purer wor-
ship, than to lie down under the hierarchy, in
the abundance of all things, but with the preju-

•* The Cause of God and his People, p. 13.

tib. p. 21.

I Nehemiah on the Wall in troublous times, p 28.

202 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

dice of conscience. But that in flying- from our
country, we should renounce communion with
such churches as profess the gospel, is a thing
which we confidently and solemnly deny." "^ If
this formal disclaimer, to -which they subscribed
their names, will not absolve them from the
charge of having made a breach in the catholic
unity, then no compurgation could avail.

In a letter written by Oliver Cromwell to the
Long Parliament, he says ; — " All that believe,
have the real unity, which is the most glorious ;
because inward and spiritual, in the Body, and
to the Head. As for being united in outward
forms, commonly called Uniformit}?-, every Christ-
ian will for peace-sake study and do, as far as
conscience will permit. And for brethren, in
things of the mind we look for no compulsion,
but that of light and reason."! The Protector's
modern vindicator has said ; — " To Cromwell,
perhaps as much as another, order was lovely,
and disorder hateful ; but he discerned better
than some others what order and disorder really
were. The forest-trees are not in ' order ' be-
cause they are all dipt into the same shape of
Dutch dragons, and forced to die or grow in
that way ; but because in each of them there is

* Letter to Mr. John Dury, p. 11.

t Carlisle's Letters and Speeches of O. Cromwell ; Letter XV.

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 203

the same genuine unity of life, from the inmost
pith to the uttermost leaf, and they do grow ac-
cording to that ! "

We rejoice in that unsurpassed catholicity of
our churches, which allows a happy liberty to
them and to their members. And if only there
be a spiritual and internal union, why should the
entire visible church be hewn down to the dead
level of a dull uniformity? Variety in unity
is the law of heaven. In God himself is seen
the adorable mystery of trinity in unity, invest-
ing his " lightning-shrouded seat " with three-
fold glory and indivisible perfection. The living
creatures about the throne, variously represent
distinct powers and virtues. The burning seraph,
and rushing cherub are glorious in their several
make and mould. From the brightest archangel
to the fairest of the ministrant spirits, there are
many gradations of might and beauty, even as
one star differeth from another. And amonar
the ransomed saints from earth, there are patri-
archs, who, before the flood, were ripening in
wisdom and grace for a thousand years : and
with these is the infant which " fell on sleep "
with the baptismal dew still fresh upon its
brow. In that day, when God shall " make up
his jewels," and shall set them in his crown, it
will be gemmed with a gorgeous variety of

204 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

precious stones, not cut to one size or shape, nor
tinged with the same unvarying hue. The
sapphire shall blaze along with the diamond,
and the ruby blush between.

SECTION III.

THE MERITS OF CONGREGATIONALISM AS RESPECTS
SCRIPTURAL SPIRITUALITY.

This mode of church government affords full
scope to the genius of our religion. The free
spirit of Christianity is impatient of human fet-
ters and trammels. It delights in breaking
yokes, and disinthralling minds which have
been subjugated by sin and by worldly usages.
It constitutionally dislikes the confinement of
imposed forms when they are not of divine ap-
pointment.

The grace of God in the heart is a leaven,
which works from within outwards. It is an
inner life, which, instead of adapting itself to the
outward shape it inhabits, conforms that to itself.
As the solid bones of the head fit themselves to
the conformation of the soft brain, so the out-
ward forms of our religion should take their
shape from the animating and assimilating spirit
within. And to pursue the figure, — when the

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 205

brain is dead, so is the skull ; which yet long
retains its shape after the other has turned to
dust and disappeared. Even so are all the
forms of religion empty, dead and defiled, when
its life and spirit are departed. They are like
the death's head and cross-bones in the monkish
cells, fitter to inspire disgust than to awaken
piety. They belong to the charnel-heaps of a
lifeless and decayed religion.

The gospel holds up spiritual worship in op-
position to that which is merely formal ; and
therefore it favors a simple worship, not encum-
bered with pompous observances which would
be likely to catch the mind of the worshiper, and
detain it in a ceremonial net-work. The ancient
attempts to adorn the plain apostolic worship
with a magnificent ritual, resulted, as Milton
says, " in drawing down all divine intercourse
between God and the human soul into an exteri-
or and bt)dily form; till nearly all the inward
parts of worship, which issue from the native
strength of the soul, ran lavishly to the upper
skin, and there hardened into a crust of formali-
ty." It is certain, that thfe Congregational dis-
cipline and worship must languish, so far as the
power of godliness declines. To maintain our
father's system in its vigor and efficieiTcy, there
must be a high degree of spirituality in the
VOL. I. 18

206 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

Church, a pervading, vital and active piety.
This fact is one chief recommendation of that
system, and is an evidence of its primitive and
scriptural character.

There is a strong propensity in man to merge
the life and spirit of religion in its outward forms.
When we see persons who were once apparently
converted to God under the simple ministrations
of the gospel, betaking themselves at last to a
punctilious observance of rites and ceremonies,
we cannot but lament their degenerate piety.
How applicable to them the language of the
apostle to those of his converts who were relaps-
ing into Jewish formalities; — "Are ye so fool-
ish ? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now
made perfect by the flesh ?" May we ever have
grace to escape such vassalage ; for vassalage it
is, though its serfs are so prone to be proud of
their shackles.

One of the oldest Puritans, a martyr to the
cause of spiritual Christianity, has said ; — " Let
us, for the appeasing and assurance of our con-
sciences, give heed to the Word of God, and by
that golden reed measure our temple, our altar,
and our worshipers ; even by these rules where-
by the apostles, those excellent, perfect work-
men, founded and built the first churches."^

* RuiTuw'.s Brief liijcovi'iy, &c., 1590, p. 7.

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 207

The Bible Christian caiuiol but feel a deep in-
terest in an ecclesiastical order which studiously
seeks to arrange itself "according to the pattern
in the mount." "The Word of God," says a
modern writer of note, " is our only rule^ in the
sense both of a law and a standard ; a rule suffi-
cient, as opposed to all deficiency ; exclusive, as
relates to any other than the Divine authority
from which it emanates ; universal, as embracing
all the principles of human actions ; and ulti-
mate, as admitting of no appeal from its decis-
ions.""^

He who is born of the Spirit, is born free : and
where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
Jesus is the grand Liberator of souls, bringing
deliverance to the captives, and the opening of
the prison doors to them that are bound. The
children of Zion come of no servile parentage :
for " Jerusalem which is above is free, which is
the mother of us all." In short, the religion of
Jesus is the emancipation of the soul. And so,
by a sort of natural necessity, it calls for forms
of government as liberal and popular as disin-
thralled humanity can wish. The spiritual and
scriptural forms which our fathers adopted, fully
meet this requisition.

* Protestant Nonconformity, by J. Conder, 1818, II., p. 313.

208 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

In considering the merits of this ancient,
catholic, and spiritual system, we must not omit
to speak of its practical tendencies.

We are led to notice the tendency of Congre-
gationalism to. enlarge and liberalize the heart.
Paying little regard to the sectarian peculiarities
of other communions, it is the less apt to overes-
timate any peculiarities of its own. Hence it is
the more ready to enter into such leagues and
alliances as may foster the communion of church-
es, without destroying their just independence.

As it was best adapted to those primitive
times of the gospel wherein it began, so will it
be found best adapted to those ultimate times of
promise, in which the gospel shall prevail over
all the earth. " Such is the truly liberal and
catholic spirit, which characterizes the principles
of Congregationalism, that if the millennium
were to commence tomorrow, there would be no
need of modifying or changing any one of those
principles. It sets up no exclusive terms of
communion ; it ijisists upon no outward forms,
or unessential rights as conditions of Christian
fellowship. It receives all, whom there is evi
dence to believe Christ has received. On this
ground, our churches without relinquishing or
altering any one principle of their organization,
or polity, might admit to their communion the

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 209

whole world, converted to Christ, and extend the
hand of fellowship to all Christians of whatever
name or denomination. But on the principle of
the Episcopalians, the millennium can never
come till the whole world become Episcopalians ;
and on the principle of the Baptists, the millen-
nium can never come till the whole world become
Baptists ; and on the principle of the Papists, the
millennium can never come till the whole world
become Papists : but on the principle of the
Congregationalists, the millennium may come at
any time, and they be prepared to enter into the
spirit of it, and embrace in the arms of Christian
fellowship, all who love the Lord Jesus Christ
in sincerity and truth, however much they might
differ in certain points of form and ceremony."^

Congregationalism cherishes public spirit, or
that disposition which prompts men to exertions
and sacrifices for the general good. Whatever
happy pre-eminence New England may enjoy, is
owing to the public spirit diffused throughout her
population. And it has been diffused mainly
by the influence of that ecclesiastical order which
makes every member of the church feel that he
has something to do for others, as well as for

* Tribute to the memory of the Pilgrims, by Joel Hawes, D. D.,

p. 87, 83.

18*

210 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

himself. This is from the remoter source
whence are derived those acts of ample munifi-
cence for which New England is famed. The
generous benefactions of individuals and of con-
gregations to promote education, beneficence and
piety at home and abroad, are chiefly emanation^
from the deep-seated springs which our church
polity has opened. This is the rod of God which
smites the rock, and causes streams to gush forth
in the desert, and make it glad.

It is obvious that such a church polity elevates
the popular rights, and favors civil liberty, and
imparts the capacity to maintain it. People who
have been bred to self-government in an inde-
pendent church are competent to govern them-
selves in a free commonwealth. A people so
trained must feel an equal aversion to despotism
and to anarchy. They can have no sympathy
with either. They will be the sworn foes of op-
pression, and the fast friends of order. The
sense of individual responsibility which has been
aroused in the church -meeting, will not sleep in
the town-meeting. It will ever be a wakeful
sentinel by the watch-fires of freedom. It was
on their system of independent churches, that
our forefathers based the political liberties of the
country. And the foundation which they laid

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 211

has stood firm as the granite hills. And so long
as that system of independent churches shall
predominate in the land, so long will it be mor-
ally impossible for aspiring hierarchs to tread
religious freedom in the dust.

Freedom of inquiry after truth is eminently
promoted by Congregationalism. It tells every
man that he is personally responsible to God for
knowing the truth. It tells him, that he cannot
throw oftMiis responsibility on pope or patriarch,
on proud prelate or plain pastor, on the living or
the dead. The mind once stirred up to investi-
gation, will never more lie down submissive to
the dictates of authority. " Human reason, when
the fit of free inquiry is upon it, is in truth like
a wild beast; the smaller the cage in which you
confine it, the more fiercely it will rage." The
wiser course is, to place the truth fully in the
way, and then give full scope to the speaker. If
he be seeking sincerely, he will soon close with
the obvious truths which will meet him on every
side. If he be not sincere in his seeking, he will
at least, escape the deeper debasement of an en-
forced and groveling hypocrisy. God himself,
all-powerful as he is, wins the heart by persua-
sion rather than by force.

In exemplifying the liberal character of our

212 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

principles, we cannot help quoting the well-
known farewell address of John Robinson to the
Plymouth colonists. " He was very confident
that the Lord had more truth and light yet to
break forth out of his holy Word. He took occa-
sion also miserably to bewail the state and con-
dition of the Reformed Churches, who were
come to a period in religion, and would go no
further than the instruments of their Reforma-
tion. As, for example, the Lutherans, they
could not be drawn to go beyond what Luther
saw; for whatever part of God's will he had
further imparted and revealed to Calvin, they
will rather die than embrace it. And so also,
saith he, you see the Calvinists, they stick
where he left them ; a misery much to be
lamented ; for though they were precious shin-
ing lights in their times, yet God had not
revealed his whole will to them ; and were they
now living, saith he, they would be as ready
and willing to embrace further light, as that they
had received. Here also he put us in mind of
our church covenant, at least that part of it
whereby we promise and covenant with God
and one another, to receive whatsoever light or
truth shall be made known to us from his writ-
ten Word ; but withal exhorted us to take heed
what we received for truth, and well to examine,

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON

213

and compare it and weigh it with other Script-
ures of truth before we received it. For, saith
he, it is not possible the christian world should
come so lately out of such thick anti-christian
darkness, and that full perfection of knowledge
should break forth at once." ^ These noble
instructions given by the Leyden pastor, have
been grossly perverted to sanction a reception of
errors which that great man had examined and
rejected long before. Even in his day, so far
from being regarded as " new light," they were
renounced as " old darkness."

We have another example of the liberal char-
acter of Puritanism, which is not less noble
than Robinson's address, and is not so liable to
be wrested into a plea for the adoption of error.
It occurs in the dedication of John Norton's
" Orthodox Evangelist ; "— " Even fundamental
truths, which have been the same in all genera-
tions, have been, and shall be, transmitted more
clear from age to age in the times of reforma-
tion ; until that which is perfect is come, and
that which is imperfect be done away. The
truth held forth is the same ; though with more
of Christ, and less of man. Such addition is no

* Gov. Wiaslow's Report in Young'a Chronicles, p. 396.

214 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

innovation, but an illustration : not new light,
but new sight." And such has been the case.
Theologians, without tampering with what our
forefathers held to be fundamental articles of
faith, have greatly improved the mode of pre-
senting and illustrating the articles of their
belief. They have not changed the mirror :
but by raising its polish, it reflects a clearer
image of the truth.

As Governor Winslow once remarked, " the
primitive churches are the only pattern which
the churches of Christ in New England have in
their eye, not following Luther, Calvin, Knox,
Ainsworth, Robinson, Ames, or any other, fur-
ther than they follow Christ and his apostles."
Mr. Cotton, no less than the good Robin-
son, lamented the disposition of the reformed
churches in Europe to keep at a stay just where
their reformers left them, rather shrinking back
than going further in the path of improvement.
These are some of his words ; — " Who knoweth
not, they have all been more studious and tena-
cious of what form the doctrine, and worship,
and discipline was left unto them, than inquisi-
tive after further light ; yea, sometimes more
inclinable to look back unto Egypt, than to
hasten toward Canaan ? — Seeing our faith rest-

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 215

eth only on the Word of the Lord, and his
Spirit breathing therein ; and the Word hath
promised that more and more light shall break
forth in these times, till Antichrist be utterly
confounded and abolished ; we shall sin against
the grace and worth of Truth, if we confine our
truth to the divines of present or former ages."^
This breathes the free spirit of Christianity,
which can be confined to no narrower limits
than the infinite fullness of eternal truth.

Our forefathers favored the same principles of
government both in church and state. It is said
that democracy necessarily runs into aristocracy,
because the executive power must fall into the
hands of a few. But our forefathers desired that
this aristocracy should not rest upon the accident
of birth, nor the circumstance of wealth, but upon
the personal merit of individuals. They desired
so to order the Church and State, that, by the
natural course of events, wisdom and goodness
should rise to -their proper elevation, and have
their proportional ascendency in the direction of
aflfairs. What Governor Winthrop desired, was
to have the administration consigned into the

* A Modest and Clear Answer, &c., 1642, chapter X.

216 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

hands of the best of the people, and of the wisest
of these. This scheme reminds us of the prom-
ise which Ion exacted from his senate ; —

" Promise, if I leave
No issue, that the sovereign power shall live
In the affections of the general heart,
And in the wisdom of the best."

It may be said, that this sounds very well in
theory or in poetry ; but cannot be completely
attained in practice. To this we answer, that
our fathers were " not of those who dream of
perfection in this world." But they set their
standard of perfection high, and sought to ap-
proximate to it as nearly as they could.

And how did they expect to make the sov-
ereign power reside " in the wisdom of the
best," when every thing was left depending
upon the popular elections ? They sought to
effect this result, by making the people see that
their own interest required it should be so. To
bring the people at large to understand this
truth, that their interests required that the pow-
ers of government should be lodged in the hands
of " the wisest of the best," our fathers depended
upon the school master and the minister. In
other words, they would have the people trained
up to an intelligent piety, which would, almost

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 217

with certainty, so use the elective franchise, that
the best qualified men should be chosen to office.
Hence their zeal for education, and the early-
provision they made for the college, and common
and grammar schools. That the whole body of
the people should be educated was essential to
the success of their political theory. For the
same reason did they take such anxious care to
provide for an able and orthodox ministry.
They would allow no town to be settled, except
by a number competent to form a church, and to
sustain a minister of the gospel. Hence too the
laws which required all the people to attend on
public worship. All this was done with a view
to accomplish the object of their social compact,
by training up a people who shall have good
sense and good feeling enough to commit the
political power to the wisest and best men
among themselves. The success of our fathers'
plans has, in a good measure, justified their
theory of government, and most of their meth-
ods of securing its beneficial operation.

In reviewing the result of their labors, our

feelings are divided between exultation over the

happy fruits of their pains, and sorrow of heart

that so much of the good seed they planted has

VOL. I. 19

218 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

failed to ripen. Great has been the measure,
both of success, and of disappointment. And as
each, in rapid aUernation, has engaged our
thoughts,

A wild and variant blast our bugles sent,
Wandering 'iwixt notes of triumph and lament.

But after making every allowance for numerous
partial failures of their schemes, the grand
social and moral experiment of our Puritan
fathers has been blessed with eminent pros-
perity. It is true, that many tares are growing
in the field, but great will be the wheaten har-
vest that shall be reaped. The world cannot
turn up to the face of day, for the sun to shine
upon, a region more flourishing and fair than
ours. Surely God " hath not dealt so with any
nation." To His name be all the praise !

But the chief reward of our fathers' pious
toils is yet to come. They looked for more
than earth can give ; they expected all that
heaven can grant. They are not doomed to
disappointment. They shall obtain the prize
they sought, on the saints' coronation-day. Oh
then, — when the hosts of heaven shall be mar-
shaled in their bright array, when the universe
of God shall be assembled to the sight, when
" all the pomp and prodigality of heaven " shall

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 219

be lavished forth to grace the scene, — while an-
gel trumpets and celestial harps shall ring out
their melodious thunderings, while jubilant alle-
luias, like the surges of the voiceful sea, shall
burst in all the tumult of delight, — then shall
those holy men receive their triumphal garlands
whose amaranthine wreaths shall never fade
away. Robed in light, and throned in glory,
they shall reign with the Son of God forever-
more.

220 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON

CHAPTER VIII.

Difficulties in the way of our forefathers. Relation between Church
and State. Abstract of Mo-saic laws. Codification of laws. Rela-
tion between the ministers and the magistrates. Mr. Norton.
Mr. Cotton's sermon. Letter to Lord Say and Seal. First associ-
ation of ministers. Mode of supporting the ministry. Public
spirit of those times. Roger Williams banished. Controversy
between him and Mr. Cotton. Revival of religion in First Church.
Church discipline. Anne Hutchinson. The Antinomian coutro.
versy. John Wheelwright. Sir Henry Vane. Mr. Cotton impli-
cated. Discovers the deceptions practiced upon him. Regains his
good standing. General Court. Offence at Mr. Wilson's sermon.
Offence at Mr. Cotton's speech. Rowland Hill. Mr. Wheelwright
condemned. First synod held in New England. Eighty errors
condemned. Mr. Wheelwright banished. Mrs. Hutchinson ad-
monished. She recants. She relapses. Is excommunicaied.
Banished. Her unhappy end. Mr. Cotton writes against Mr.
Barnard and Mr. Ball of England.

The enterprise in which our fathers were here
engaged, when Mr. Cotton joined them, was one
of great difficulty, as well as great importance.
They had some general ideas, derived from their
sacred oracle, the Bible, of the nature of the free
government, in the Church and in the State,
which they wished to set up. But they were
sorely perplexed in trying to reduce those ideas
into practical forms. It was a novel undertak-

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

221

ing. They had no expetience of other men to
guide them. They were pioneers. They were '
to strike out a new path, through jungle and
through forest, to reach the high and glorious
results toward which they were looking. But,
at the outset, they were themselves confused in
the intricate and untraveled maze. They were at
a loss to find the due bearings and proper start-
ing points.

At this juncture Mr. Cotton came to their aid.
To them he seemed like that other John, who
was the Lord's herald :— "the voice of one cry-
ing in the wilderness, ' Prepare ye the way of the
Lord, make his paths straight.' "

He never attained to the great conclusion, to
which 'the present age has come, that there ought
to be an entire separation of Church and State.
But he led the way to it, by taking a position
much nearer to it than that which was then oc-
cupied by the Christian world. He taught, that
the ecclesiastical power is totally distinct from
the civil power ; and that, though they be closely
connected, they are never to be confounded.
This distinction prepared the way for their sep-
aration. Mr. Cotton thus expressed himself on
the subject. "God's institutions, such as the
19^

222 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

government of church and commonwealth be,
may be close and compact, and coordinate one
to another, and yet not confounded. God hath
so framed the state of church government and
ordinances, that they may be compatible to any
commonwealth, though never so much disordered
in his frame. But yet when a commonwealth
hath liberty to mould his own frame, I conceive
the Scripture hath given full direction for the
right ordering of the same, and yet in such sort
as may best maintain the well-being of the
church. Mr. Hooker doth often quote a saying
out of Mr. Cartwright, though I have not read it
in him, that no man fashioneth his house to his
hangings, but his hangings to his house. It is
better that the commonwealth be fashioned to
the setting forth of God's house, which is his
church, than to accommodate the church frame
to the civil state. "=^

In following out these sentiments, the colony,
where "the commonwealth had that liberty to
mould its own frame," could not fail to conform
to the republicanism of the Congregational
church polity in which our fathers believed.

* Hutchinaon's History of Mass., vol. 1, p. 437.

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 223

As all the freemen of this new-born republic
were church members, it was thought that the
law of God ought to be their rule in civil affairs.
The General Court desired Mr. Cotton to draw
up an abstract of the laws of Moses, omitting
such as were of temporary obligation, and in
their nature peculiar to the Jewish polity. This
service he performed, and the fruit of his labor
was many years after printed at London by
William Aspinwall, in 1655. From this trans-
action some malicious joker has taken occasion
to say, that our fathers voted that they would be
governed by the laws of Moses, till they could
find time to make better. The jester had per-
sonal reasons, no doubt, for disliking the Mosaic
legislation, which is very severe upon slanderers
and such as bear false witness. Mr. Davenport
gives the following correct account of the mat-
ter. "Considering that these plantations had
liberty to mould their civil order into that form
which they should find to be best for themselves,
and that here the churches and commonwealth
are complanted together in holy covenant and
fellowship with God in Christ Jesus, he did, at
the request of the General Court in the Bay,
draw an abstract of the laws of judgment deliv-

224 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

ered from God by Moses to the commonwealth
of Israel, so far forth as they are of morale that
is, of perpetual and universal equity among all
nations, especially such as these plantations are :
wherein he advised that Theocracy, that is,
God's government, might be established, as the
best form of government, where the people that
choose civil rulers are God's people in covenant
with him."^

Mr. Cotton's abstract was not adopted. Anoth-
er drawn upon the same general principles, but
with numerous deviations, some of them impor-
tant, obtained the preference. It was printed in
London in 1641, and has been supposed to be
the joint labor of Mr. Cotton and Sir Henry
Vane.t

This was soon superseded by another body of
laws of the same general character ; but with a
much better arrangement. It is remarkable, that
the statutory system which was eventually adopt-
ed, was a code of laws systematically arranged
under one hundred heads. It has been one of
the chief commendations of the mighty mind of

* From a manuscript life of John Cotton by Mr. Davenport, quoted
in Hutchinson's Original Papers, p. 161.
t Reprinted Mass. Hist. Soc. C'ollec, Ist Series, vol. V. p. 171, &c.

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

225

Napoleon, that he was the first in modern times
to apply the principles of plain practical common
sense to the subject of legislation. That ^reat
man anticipated that " his fame in the eyes of
posterity would rest even more on the code which
bore his name, than on all the victories he had
won." It has become the basis of the legislation
of half of Europe. Whhin a few years the same
method has been adopted in several of our States,
and it has resulted in that recent revision of the
statutes of Massachusetts, by which a chaos of
laws was reduced to order and consistency. It
is wonderful to find that this last great improve-
ment, the codification of laws, was discovered and
put in practice in this colony more than two cen-
turies ago: and our learned modern citizens
have, unawares, reverted to the method of their
fathers. The honor of this boast of legislation
belongs to the Rev. Nathaniel Ward, the witty
and pious minister of the ancient town of Ips-
wich ; and also a student of the science of law.=^
Mr. Cotton advised the people to persevere in
their design of setting up a Theocracy, or divine
government over a Christian commonwealth.

* Ward's Code is reprinted in the Colleclions of Massachusella
Historical Society, 3d series, vol. VII., p.—

226 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

His plan was, to have the public affairs adminis-
tered agreeably to the principles and require-
ments of revealed religion, by executive officers
appointed by the free election of the people.
The people were to choose their own governors
and other magistrates: and these officers were
to govern themselves by the instructions of the
Word of God. God, speaking by his Word,
was to be owned as chief Lawgiver and supreme
Head of their community. They who are dis-
posed to laugh when they see the legal enact-
ments of our ancestors backed up with texts of
Scripture, may as well save half a smile for
Lord Bacon, and other of the highest judicial
functionaries of England, who, in those times
often confirmed their decisions in the same man-
ner. Whoever will turn over the older parlia-
mentary debates, will find the haughtiest caval-
iers in the House of Commons, triumphantly
clinching an argument by appealing to Holy Writ.
And doubtless, when the prophecies are more
completely fulfilled in the coming of the kingdom
of God on earth, the day will come round again,
when it will be deemed meet for Christian people
to regulate their political affairs by scriptural
principles.

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 227

As one result of this attempt in our colony, the
ministry was brought into a very close alliance
with the magistracy. For both the ministry and
the magistracy, the people cherished a religious
veneration. Nor were they jealous of the inti-
mate relations of their temporal and spiritual
rulers, so long as the keys of power remained in
the hands of the people by means of the elective
franchise, both in Church and Commonwealth.
Whenever any disposition to engross undue
authority was betrayed, the people, notwith-
standing their profound respect for their leaders,
always promptly applied the never-failing reme-

Good Mr. Norton says; — "It was an usual
thing, henceforth, for the Magistrate to consult
with the ministers in hard cases, especially in
matters of the Lord ; yet so, as notwithstanding
occasional conjunction, religious care was had
of avoiding confusion of counsels : Moses and
Aaron rejoiced, and kissed one another in the
mount of God."

As an illustration of this matter, we may refer
to an affair which took place in September, 1634.
Mr. Hooker and many of his friends, who had
at first settled in Newtown, were anxious to

22S LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

remove to Connecticut. Much opposition was
made to their removal : and the two coordinate
branches of the General Court came into very
serious collision. Neither branch would yield
to the other. In this painful emergency the
whole Court appointed a day of fasting and
humiliation, which was observed in all the con-
gregations. A few days after, the Court met
again. Before proceeding to business, Mr. Cot-
ton preached from Haggai,2: 4; — "Yet now be
strong, O Zerubbabel, saith the Lord ; and be
strong, 0 Joshua son of Josedech the high priest ;
and be strong, all ye people of the land, saith the
Lord, and work ; for I am with you, saith the Lord
of hosts." In his sermon the preacher severally
described the strength of the magistracy, minis-
try, and people. Thus the strength of Zerubbabel,
or the magistrate, is his official power and au-
thority : the strength of Joshua, or the minister,
is the purity of his life and teaching ; and the
strength of the people is their liberty. The
preacher went on to show, that, in matters of
common concern, each of these three estates in
the first instance, had a negative voice upon the
doings of the others ; and yet that the ultimate
resolution ought to be in the whole body of the
people. The sermon closed with an answer to

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 229

all objections, and a solemn declaration of the
people's right and duty to maintain their true
liberties against any unjust violence or aggress-
ion. This discourse gave extraordinary satis-
faction. All animosities and difliculties vanished,
the various conflicting interests were reconciled,
and all hands went to work vigorously, unani-
mously and peacefully from that day. Alluding
to this atiair, the reverend historian, Hubbard,
says; — "Mr. Cotton had such an insinuating
and melting way in his preaching, that he would
usually carry his very adversary captive after
the triumphant chariot of his rhetoric." It was
in accordance with the views expressed in that
"political sermon," that he said on another occa-
sion;— "Purity preserved in the church, will
preserve well-ordered liberty in the people ; and
both of them establish well-balanced authority in
the magistrates. God is the author of all these
three."=^

It was another effect of his all-subduing per-
suasiveness, that certain men of distinction who,
in the heat of the recent controversy, had spoken
disrespectfully to some of the magistrates, "being
reproved for the same in open court, did gravely
and humbly acknowledge their fault."

# Letter to Lord Say and Seal.
VOL. L 20

230 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

The first association in Massachusetts was
formed by the ministers of Boston and the vicin-
ity about the year 1635. It met once in two
weeks at the houses of the members. The
usual business was the discussion of some impor-
tant theological question. This association was,
by some, regarded with a godly jealousy, lest it
might, at a future day, encroach on the liberties
of the people. The experience of more than
two centuries has proved that this was a needless
jealousy. The associations of Massachusetts,
both local and general, have been highly useful
and influential. At the same time, the indepen-
dence of the churches has suffered no infringe-
ment.

Mr. Cotton's disposition to popularize the
whole administration of religious affairs showed
itself in the manner in which he chose to receive
his salary. He insisted that it should be derived
from the free-will offerings of the people. Once
each Lord's Day, at the close of public worship,
every member of the congregation who felt dis-
posed to contribute to the support of the gospel,
walked up to the elders' seat, where one of the
deacons received the offerings. The proceeds
were deposited in a public chest, out of which

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 231

Mr. Wilson and his colleague received for their
support one hundred pounds per annum. Con-
sidering how much greater was the value of
money in those days, none of our ministers are
now more amply maintained. The grace of God
was bestowed on the First Church of Boston,
even as, of old, on the churches of Macedonia ;
so that, " in a great trial of affliction, the abun-
dance of their joy and their deep poverty abound
ed unto the riches of their liberality."

Nor were the pastors, on their part, less dis-
interested. Not to speak of the proverbial
generosity of that whole-souled man, Mr. Wil-
son, we find, that, when subscriptions were
made for charitable purposes, Mr. Cotton's
donation would equal that of the wealthiest of
his flock. In effecting his settlement here, he
incurred expenses amounting to eighty pounds,
which, at that period, was a pretty round sum.
But when the people wished to reimburse it, he
declined the offer, as not being necessary in his
circumstances.

Indeed there is no trait more admirable in
our fathers, than their wonderful public spirit,
and the readiness of individuals to make per-
sonal sacrifices for the general good. When

232 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

people elsewhere marvel at the public and pri-
vate munificence of the citizens of Boston
toward all objects of literary, philanthropic and
religious interest, we can say that they came
honestly by this ennobling disposition, for they
derived it in its full strength from their Calvin-
istic progenitors.

Most of the colonists who were men of prop-
erty greatly impaired their estates by the sacri-
fices they made for the common cause. They
were ever prompt to extend to each other a
helping hand. Thus, when Governor Win-
throp, neglecting his own affairs in his diligent
service of the public, met with severe losses,
the people spontaneously presented him with
five hundred pounds.

The early part of Mr. Cotton's ministry here
was disturbed by some violent storms of contro-
versy. After these tempests had " wrought
themselves to rest," there followed many calm
and peaceful years.

In 1635, Eoger Williams was banished from
the colony. The merits of this controversy will
be discussed in another chapter. Let it here be
said, however, and that with all respect for the
memory and character of that " fiery Welch-

LIFE OF JOHN COTTO|<r. 233

man," that the action of our fathers in this
matter is capable of a good defence : and that
the condemnation they have generally received
has been excessive and unjust. The matter is
now mentioned merely with reference to Mr.
Cotton's share in the transactions.

While the magistrates had the case of Mr.
Williams under consideration, Mr. Cotton, with
the neighboring ministers, whom the accused
had once professed to hold in the highest ven-
eration, presented a request that the civil
authorities would stay their proceedings till the
elders " had in a church-way endeavored his
conviction and repentance." The ministers
hoped, that it was not from seditious principle
that Mr. Williams had acted ; but from a mis-
guided conscience, which they expected to be
able to set right. The magistrates acceded to
the proposal of the ministers ; but the governor,
who too well understood the " nature of the
creature," foretold to them ; — " You are de-
ceived in the man, if you think he will conde-
scend to learn of any of you." When other
measures failed, and Mr. Williams was ban-
ished, Mr. Cotton wielded his pen in behalf of
the magistrates. He published a letter concern-
20*

234 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

ingf the power of the civil magistrate in matters
of religion. The banished man replied to this
letter ; and also published a tract against the
" Bloody Tenent of Persecution " for the cause
of conscience. Mr. Cotton rejoined with an-
other, entitled, " The Bloody Tenent washed
and made White in the Blood of the Lamb,
being discussed and discharged of blood guilti-
ness by just defence, in answer to Mr. Wil-
liams ; to which is added a reply to Mr.
Williams' answer to Mr. Cotton's letter." His
opponent retorted with a treatise, styled, " The
Bloody Tenent yet more bloody by Mr. Cotton's
endeavor to wash it white in the Blood of the
Lamb, &c." Here the dispute ended, as is
usual in such cases, each party satisfied that he
had the best of the argument.

For three or four years in the beginning of
Mr. Cotton's ministry, the internal prosperity of
his church was unexampled ; and would, at this
day, be regarded as a powerful revival. There
were more conversions and admissions than in
all the other churches of the colony. Many
persons of profane and dissolute lives were sur-
prisingly reformed, and received into the bosom
of the church. The discipline, admirably ad-

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 235

ministered under the pastor Wilson and the
ruling elder Leveret, was of singular benefit to
the congregation. There were many " gifted
brethren " into whose lips the Spirit of grace
was poured, to the great edification and profit of
the whole body of which they were members,
which was in danger of being " exalted above
measure through the abundance of the revela-
tions."

But clouds of thick darkness soon overcast
the sunny prospect, and poured down their tor-
rents, accompanied with the withering flash and
the terrifying thunder. All at once the field,
which was waving with such goodly harvest,
was found to" be sown with tares. Noxious
weeds crept into that well-watered garden of
gracious plants, and " roots of bitterness spring-
ing up troubled them, and thereby many were
defiled."

The prominent instigator of this mischief was
a daughter of Eve, named Anne Hutchinson.
She was probably a pious woman ; and cer-
tainly an artful one. On the ground of the
apostle's direction, that the elder women should
teach the younger, she used to convene large
numbers of females at her house, where she in-

236 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

Stilled into them the doctrines of antinomianism
in their most demoralizing form. That she was
worthy of the heaviest ecclesiastical censures, no
competent judge of such matters can doubt.
The justice of the civil disabilities under which
she was eventually placed, must be considered
elsewhere.

Her most active supporter was Rev. John
Wheelwright, her brother-in-law, who preached,
as an assistant, within the extensive bounds of
the Boston church, which then included Brain-
tree, where he principally labored. His parti-
zans urged to have him associated as colleague
with the other ministers : but Mr. Cotton evaded
the connection, on the ground that Mr. Wheel-
wright was an unsafe and violent man, and apt
to raise questions of doubtful disputation.

Another of Mrs. Hutchinson's helpers was
Sir Henry Vane, then a very young man, and
newly arrived in the colony, where, by his
grave and dignified demeanor, he wonderfully
took with the people, stealing their hearts, like
Absalom, from their beloved Winthrop, whom
he speedily supplanted in the chair of state. By
his connection with the female heresiarch, he
lost his popularity, and his office, and soon re-

LIFE OF JOHN COTTOlf. 237

turned to England. He there acted a very
conspicuous part during the civil wars, resisted
Cromwell's assumption of the protectorate, and
was a staunch Genevan republican to the last.
He died as a political martyr, being beheaded,
at fifty years of age, for high treason against the
ever-treacherous Stuarts. He is a striking in-
stance of that late retribution by which posterity
reverses the judgment of former times. The
ablest literary arbiters of the present day, pro-
claim this person, once so much abused, as one
of the moral heroes of his eventful times, as a
colossal champion of popular rights, and both as
a civilian and theologian, of vast and varied
abilities. As a writer of prose in that age of
great thinkers and authors, they announce him
to be inferior only to the matchless Milton, and
scarcely second even to him. That great poet
has paid him a tribute sufficient to enrich his
memory for many an age, in the following son-
net "to Sir Henry Vane, the younger."

" Vane, young in years, but in sage council old,

Than whom a belter senator ne'er held

The helm of Rome, when gowns, not arms, repelled

The fierce Epirot and the African bold;

Whether lo settle peace, or to unfold

The drift of hollow stales, hard to be spelled ;

238 LTFE OF JOHN COTTON.

Then to advise how War may, best upheld,

]\Iove by her two main nerves, iron and gold,

In all her equipage : besides to know

Both spiritual potoer and civil, what each means,

What severs each thou hast learned, which few have done :

The bounds of either sword to thee we owe :

Therefore on thy firm hand Religion leans

In peace, and reckons thee her eldest son."

Upheld by these powerful supporters, Mrs.
Hutchinson was enabled to raise a terrible com-
raotion in the community. They had the
address to procure, for a time, the countenance
of Mr. Cotton. This they did, by giving him
such explanations in private conversation, as
satisfied his unsuspicious nature of the ortho-
doxy of their sentiments. Captivated by their
ardent zeal and high professions, he gave heed
to these " seducing spirits " for a time. But
when, to his consternation, the vail of duplicity
was thrown aside, he was shocked to find that
he had unwittingly lent the sanction of his name
to opinions so dangerous and corrupt. Upon
this, the Antinomians charged him with dis-
sembling, holding one set of opinions in the
pulpit, and another in private discourse. This
is the only transaction of Mr. Cotton's life which
seems to have given serious offence to his breth-

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 239

ren, who charged him with wavering . and
timidity.

His only fauh, however, appears to have been
the too great facility with which he suffered
persons whom he had held in the highest esti-
mation, to delude him as to their real sentiments,
and to father their errors upon him. As soon as
he was disabused, he exerted himself to repair
the mischief. He publicly lamented his fault,
in that he had slept in false security, while the
enemy was sowing tares. In a letter to Mr.
Davenport, he says ; — " The truth is, the body
of the island is bent to backsliding into error and
delusions : the Lord pity and pardon them, and
me also, who have been so slow to see their
windings, and subtle contrivances, and insinua-
tions in all their transactions." Governor Win-
throp gives this testimony of him, that, "finding
how he had been abused, and made, as himself
said, their stalking-horse, (for they pretended to
hold nothing but what Mr. Cotton held, and
himself did think the same,) did spend most of
his time, both publicly and privately, to discover
those errors, and to reduce such as were gone
astray." Among others reclaimed by his efforts
was Robert Lenlhal, the minister of Weymouth.

240 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

Long afterwards, on a general fast-day, " Mr.
Cotton, in his exercise that day at Boston, did
confess and bewail, as the churches, so his
own security, sloth and credulity, whereupon
so many and dangerous errors had gotten up
and spread in the church ; and went over all
the particulars, and showed how he came to be
deceived ; (the errors being framed in words so
near the truths which he had preached,) and the
falsehood of the maintainers of them, who usu-
ally would deny to him what they had delivered
to others."^ He was sufficiently humbled for
a fault which appears to have been only the
amiable infirmity of a heart too generous and
confiding. When his eyes were opened to the
duplicity which had been practiced, he spared
no pains that he might rectify his mistake, and
was very successful in arresting the spread of
the evil. " By that means," says Hubbard,
'* did that reverend and worthy minister of the
gospel recover his former splendor throughout
the whole country of New England, with his
wonted esteem and interest in the hearts of all
his friends and acquaintance, so as his latter

* Savage's Winthrop, I. 253 and 280.

\

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 24 1

days were like the clear shining of the sun after
rain."

Nearly the whole of the members of the
church who resided witliin the present limits of
Boston, favored the cause of Mrs. Hutchinson at
the outset, with the exception of the pastor Mr.
Wilson, Governor Winthrop and two or three
others. This small minority had on its side
all the ministers in the colony, except Mr.
Wheelwright and Mr. Cotton ; and nearly all
the laymen of note. In this contest, so violent
and almost unintelligible, it is surprising to see
the same church, retaining as its ministers,
those who were accounted the heads of the
opposing parties. This fact, far more than any
argument, evinces the prudence and Christian
temper of the two men.

The principal errors of the Hutchinsonians
were, first, the denial that sanctification is, in
any sense whatever, an evidence of justifica-
tion : and secondly, the assertion that the Holy
Ghost dwells personally in every believer. Sir
Henry Vane must needs go a little farther, and
maintain that the Holy Ghost is united to the
believer, in the same manner as the divine
nature is united with the man Christ Jesus.

VOL. I. 21

242 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

The General Court took up the matter :
though Rev. Hugh Peters sharply rebuked Gov-
ernor Vane, and plainly hinted that if the civil
authority would limit its action to " the things
that are Caesar's," " the things that are God's "
would go on much more quietly.

The Court, having the matter under consider-
ation, called for the opinion of the ministers. In
the morning Mr. Cotton preached on the disput-
ed points to general satisfaction. In the after-
noon, Mr. Wilson made a lament over the dark
and distracted condition of the churches, and the
divisions occasioned by the newly broached
opinions. At this speech, Mr. Cotton, with
Governor Vane and others took deep offence,
and called upon the pastor to retract his expres-
sions. Mr. Wilson, supported by the firm hand
of Governor Winthrop, declined to give the
satisfaction required. The contention threat-
ened to wax sharp between them : but at last the
wisdom and gentleness of the two ministers
calmed the murmurings and mutterings which
were ready to burst forth in a storm of strife.
The next time Mr. Wilson preached, he was so
happy as to give contentmeni to all.

As is usual in such cases, one error led on to

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 243

another, heresy begat more heresy, and schism
necessitated further schism. The ministers
questioned Mr. Cotton on a variety of articles:
and though most of his replies were satisfactory,
others were not thought to be sufficiently ex-
plicit and unequivocal. Expressions and phrases
were weighed and dissected with astonishing
scrupulosity. Though Mr. Cotton was not to
be shaken from his honest belief, yet neither was
he betrayed into rashness.

A ship, with passengers, was about to sail for
Endand. " Tell our transatlantic friends," said
the teacher, " that all our strife is about magni-
fying the grace of God. Some seek to exalt the
grace of God towards us ; and some, the grace
of God within us." Mr. Wilson, hurt at this,
replied that he knew of neither elders nor breth-
ren among their churches who did not labor to
magnify the grace of God in respect to both jus-
tification and sanctification, or the grace of God
both toward us and within us. As the people
understood the matter of difference, the pastor,
according to the nature of his office, naturally
insisted on sanctification as " the grace of God
within us ;" or gracious works, and experimental
godliness. And the teacher, as the nature of

244 LIFEOF JOHN COTTON.

his office might easily incline him, insisted more
on justification, as the free grace of God towards
us, pardoning us, not for our works or any thing
in us, but solely for the sake of Christ. Each
of these worthy divines was full in the faith of
both these points : but to either point a relative
importance was assigned by one of the ministers
beyond w^hat the other would allow. Perhaps
this unprofitable dispute was never better dis-
posed of than by the excellent Rowland Hill,
who once said in a sermon; — "If I were asked
which I loved the most, justification or sanctifi-
cation : — 1 would answer like the little children,
when you ask them which they love best, father
or mother ? They will tell you, ' I love them
both best.'"

At their session in March, 1637, Mr. Wheel-
wright was tried before the General Court for a
highly inflammatory sermon preached on a fast
day. He was adjudged to be guilty of sedition
and contempt of Court, though Governor Vane
and a few others entered their protest. There
was a reluctance to proceed to the passing of
sentence. The case was deferred to the next
Court, and Mr. Wheelwright was recommended
to the care of the Boston church, which had in-

LIFE OP JOHN COTTON. 245

terposed a petition in his* behalf. Meanwhile
the discussions between the ministers had nar-
rowed the ground of controversy, till it was re-
duced to a mere hair-line, of such fineness as to
require the nicest sort of metaphysical eye-glasses
to discern any room for further difference of
opinion.

When the Court was again convened, Mr.
Wheelwright confronted his judges with all
possible boldness. He and his partizans had
been so insolent and violent, as to injure their
cause : but they were encouraged by some new
arrivals which brought fresh strength to the an-
tinomian standard. Their fanatical zeal blazed
out in all directions, with flaming extravagances
which fired inflammable minds. Some were
deranged with joys, and others with despair.
The public excitement and distress was becom-
ing intolerable. Days of fasting and prayer
were observed with reference to the sad condition
of affairs.

At a conference of ministers and elders held
on the 30th of July, harmony was restored be-
tween Mr. Cotton and the other ministers : but
Mr. Wheelwright, who was present, continued
impracticable.

21^

246 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

On the 30th of August, the first synod ever
held in New England, was held at Cambridge.
All the pastors, teachers and elders in the coun-
try were present. They were boarded at the
public charge, by which also was defrayed the
traveling expenses of the members from the
colony of Connecticut. This synod condemned
eighty or more different errors, which had been
set afloat in the community : Mr. Wheelwright
remaining as pertinacious as ever. This con-
demnation was signed by all the members, except
Mr. Cotton, who appears to have scrupled at the
condemnation of two of the points specified.

On the 2d of November the General Court
assembled at Cambridge. After their long for-
bearance, finding all their attempts to reconcile
Mr. Wheelwright unavailing, and feeling that
a continuance of these dissensions absolutely
endangered the existence of their little common-
wealth, which was almost shaken to pieces
thereby, they proceeded to banish him from
iheir society. His sister, Mrs. Hutchinson, after
a very singular trial of two days' duration, was
also voted to be " unfit for their society," and
required to leave it. Mr. Wheelwright went,
with many of his followers, and founded the

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 247

town and church of Exeter, N. H. From thence
he soon after removed to Wells in Maine : and
after five or six years' absence, he owned his er-
rors, made his retraction, and was restored to a
residence in Massachusetts.

The unhappy woman who had fomented such
a disturbance, after a short imprisonment, was
set at liberty. But returning to her old course
of agitation, she was summoned before the whole
congregation on a lecture day, when her errors
were enumerated and condemned, and a solemn
admonition was read to her by Mr. Cotton, who ^
decidedly reproved the disposition of the woman
who had once been his most ardent admirer.

She then resided a while in Mr. Cotton's
family, where he and Mr. Davenport labored to
convince her, and bring her to repent of her er-
rors. They so far prevailed with her, that she
made a written recantation of most of her anti-
nomian heresies ; but in language so equivocal,
as failed to satisfy the church. In an oral ex-
planation she made a general confession of her
delusions, so humble and penitential, that they
began to hope that she was really about to be
reclaimed. But the moment they began to
touch upon particular points, she became as wild

248 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

as ever : and involved herself in such contradic-
tions as amazed and alienated the last of her
supporters and advocates. All hope in her fa-
vor being now abandoned, a motion was made
for her excommunication. The long-suffering
church, feeling a lingering tenderness for their
erring sister, and something of horror at the
thought of passing that dread sentence, still hes-
itated to take the step. At last, the resolution
was adopted, and the gangrened limb was
stricken from the body.

After lingering with her friends awhile, she
departed to an island in Narragansett Bay, which
her husband and others had purchased of the
Indians. Here they were ever starting some
monstrous or foolish notion : — such as, that wo-
men have no souls, that morality is antichrist,
and that the devil and the Holy Ghost had an
indwelling with every believer. Her husband
dying about six years after, she again removed
into the limits of the Dutch colony beyond New
Haven. Here, in the following year, she came
to the end of her earthly sorrows under the Mo-
hawk scalping-knife. She perished with all her
family of sixteen persons, except that one daugh-
ter was carried into captivity.

I

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 249

This protracted controversy being thus brought
to a close, Mr. Cotton found leisure to write a
reply to a treatise which a Mr. Barnard in Eng-
land had published against the mode of gathering
the churches in this country. Mr. Cotton, in
this year 1638, also replied to a defence of litur-
gies by Mr. Ball.

Thus this faithful soldier of the cross, ever
valiant for the truth, had scarce panted through
the toils of one sharp conflict, before he girded'
himself for fresh encounters. And, doubtless, it
was no small relief, to turn from the struggle
within the camp to meet an adversary abroad.

250 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON

CHAPTER IX.

Mr. Cotton's success in the ministry. His influence in the commu-
nity. Instances. Women's vails. Independent spirit of the people.
Instances. Morality of the colony. Mr. Cotton invited to return to
England in 1641. Again next year to the Westminster Assembly.
Congregationalists in the Assembly. Mr. Cotton declines going.
Survey of the sum of Church Discipline. Otlier writings on the
subject. Synod of 1643. Synod of 1646 — 8. Cambridge platform.
Mr. Cotton in the family. Family altar. Sabbath keeping. T.
Shepard. Letter to N. Rogers. Hospitality. Benevolence to
Church of Segetea. Learning. Reading Calvin. Habits of study.
Manner of preaching. Luther. Roger Clap. Fast days. Contro-
versial writings. Correspondence, N. Rogers, O. Cromwell.
Carlyle. Mr. Cotton's personal appearance. Pulpit delivery. Equa-
nimity. Patience under abuse. Cause of his death. Last labors.
Prepares to die. Closing scene. Funeral obsequies. Dwelling-
house. Will. Houses of worship. Baptisms. Admissions to the
church. Mr. Cotton's children. His grand-children. Ministers and
preachers to the Indians. Children of Mr. Cotton who died before
him. The Mothers. Mr. Cotton's widow. Woodbridge's elegy.

After his troubles in connection with Mrs.
Hutchinson's disturbances, which so afflicted him
that he seriously meditated a retreat from the
colony, Mr. Cotton passed the rest of his days in
peace and high esteem. His labors in the pulpit

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 251

and elsewhere were exceedingly great ; and the
power of God mightily attended them, and
crowned them to the conversion of numerous
souls, and the edification of thousands. Under
the wise counsels of the noble and devout Win-
throp in the State, and those of Mr. Cotton in the
Church, the community prospered to such a
degree, as to make the grateful inhabitants apply
to them the words of the Psalm , — " Thou leddest
thy people like a flock by the hand of Moses and
Aaron."

Mr. Cotton knew how to touch the keys of
the human heart, so as to draw out responsive
and accordant notes. He played this complica-
ted organ with a master's hand : and though he
found it sometimes sadly out of tune, his skill
would often blend the jarring sounds in surpris-
ing harmony. The church which he governed,
with one or two exceptions, so peacefully, was
organized of very discordant materials. Many
of the members were strongly inclined to most
of the forms of the national church of England,
in which they had been bred ; and others were
speculative and adventurous reformers, who
scarce knew how to be subject to any settled rule.
But the patient sagacity of their teacher was

252 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

marvelously successful in training them to hab-
its of agreement and order.

A few instances are recorded which may
serve to show the extent of his influence. In
1634, the people of Boston chose a committee for
the division and distribution of the town lands,
and purposely omitted to place any of the mag-
istrates on the committee. Mr. Cotton soon
persuaded them, that it was more according to
order, to refer such affairs to the civil elders of
their Israel. And so they unanimously agreed
to go into a new election, agreeably to his views.

In 1639, when the decays of their first rude
place of worship, and the growth of the congre-
gation, made it necessary to rear another, there
arose a warm dispute as to the spot where it
should stand. Their Teacher interfered with
such success as to reconcile their opinions upon
a point, which, above all others is apt to rend a
congregation in sunder. The new edifice cost a
thousand pounds, which this poor people cheer-
fully paid, without assessment, by voluntary
contri^^ution.

At an election held in 1641, it was proposed,
that two of the deputies, who had fallen into low
circumstances, should be dropped in favor of

/

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

253

wealthier men. The Teacher, hearing of the
project, generously, but prudently, condemned it
at his next weekly lecture, in which he main-
tained, that, if old and faithful officers had grown
poor in the public service, instead of being dis-
carded, they should be relieved at the public
expense. The reproof was felt, and had its
proper effect.

In another case he proved that even the arbi-
trary fashions of female apparel could not with-
stand the weight of his solid counsels. Roger
Williams and Mr. Skelton had persuaded the
female part of their congregation at Salem, that
it was a religious duty for all women to wear
vails in public worship. Mr. Cotton went there
to preach on the Lord's day. He was much
struck at the oriental aspect of things in the
congregation, so different from the customs of
the English people : and in his forenoon instruc-
tions, he effectually took the vail from off the
understandings of the ladies, and so enlightened
their minds thereby, that they all appeared in the
afternoon without any vail upon their heads.
And so that fashion passed away.

But it would be the height of injustice to our
free-spirited ancestors, to suppose that there was
VOL. T. 22

254 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

any thing servile in the profound deference they
usually paid to the suggestions of their civil and
ecclesiastical leaders. When occasion required,
they were not slow to show a stubborn independ-
ence with which it would not do to trifle.
Thus in 1634, the people felt apprehensive, that,
by re-electing Winthrop, they should make way
for a Governor for life. Mr. Cotton, then at the
height of his popularity, in a sermon before the
General Court, on whom the choice devolved,
taught ; " that a magistrate ought not to be turn-
ed out without just cause, no more than a mag-
istrate might turn out a private man from his
freehold, without trial." No noise was raised
about this dangerous doctrine ; but, at that same
election, they turned out Winthrop, and put in
Dudley. Next year they ousted Dudley, and
put in Haynes. The year after, they left ofC
Haynes, and put in Vane. And all by way of
practically showing their dissent from the doc-
trine, that an elective magistrate has any thing
like a freehold tenure of his office. In 1639,
the Governor and magistrate ventured to nomi-
nate three persons to fill vacancies in their board;
leaving the people, however, as they said, " to
use their liberties according to their consciences."

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

255

And the people did use their liberties according
to their consciences. They chose never a man
of them. These were days, when " king Cau-
cus " did not reign so despotically as now.

Such instances, rightly considered, are equally
honorable to all the parties. It shows that the
extreme deference ordinarily paid to their lead-
ing men, was not a blind and slavish submission;
but a free and intelligent homage to their pre-
eminent wisdom and worth.

Such was the state of morals in those days,
that of twelve hundred men under arms on a
training day, not one was intoxicated, or guilty
of profane language. Not long after this time,
a sermon was preached in London, before both
houses of parliament, the Lord Mayor and
Aldermen of London, and the Westminster
Assembly of Divines, constituting the most
remarkable auditory which the world could then
have brought together. In that sermon, the
preacher said ;— " 1 have lived in a country
where in seven years I never saw a beggar, nor
heard an oath, nor looked upon a drunkard."
That country was New England. In another
place, additional testimony will be presented as
to the high tone of morality in the first age of
this country.

256 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

Mr. Cotton was by no means forgotten in his
native country. The times were coming, when
"carousing cavaliers were turned to flight in
every fight and skirmish," by " praying Puri-
tans," those warriors of " iron grimness, stern as
doom." It was about to be ascertained that solid
" round-heads " were much too hard for empty
" rattle-heads." The Long Parliament had be-
gun to take matters in hand as parliaments had
never done before. That persecuting power,
which had banished from Britairi so many of
the choice spirits of the land, was now broken ;
and many of the wanderers were returning to
their homes, while others were earnestly invited
to avail themselves of the altered state of affairs.
In 1641, a letter was addressed to Mr. Cotton
and several other leading colonists, entreating
them to return to the mother-country, and to
take the part which would naturally fall to them,
if there, in remodeling the institutions of the
land. This letter was signed by the leading
men in that great revolution, including Oliver
Cromwell. It was even in contemplation to
send over a ship expressly for him.

The next year, Mr. Cotton was invited, with
Mr. Hooker and Mr. Davenport, to repair to

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 257

England, and partake in the labors of the famous
Assembly of Divines at Westminster. Mr.
Cotton and Mr. Davenport were at first disposed
to comply with the invitation, but were dissuaded
by Mr. Hooker. The latter was decidedly
opposed to the measure. He probably foresaw,
that the overwhelming preponderance of Pres-
byterian members in that Assembly would prob-
ably create great difficulty for any who were so
fully committed in conscience and principle to
the Congregational Way, as himself and his
brethren here. There were in that Assembly,
five Congregationalists, commonly distinguished
as the " Dissenting Brethren." These, with
some help from about as many more of lesser
note, kept the whole Assembly at bay for long
years of debate and toil. The great body of the
members was deeply intent upon establishing a
government by Presbyteries, Synods, and As-
semblies, over all the churches of England,
without any toleration of other sects. They
labored in this work with immense vigor, having
all the power of the Long Parliament to back
them. But do what they would, the invincible
" Dissenting Brethren " had the amazing ad-
dress to embarrass all their attempts. It was long
22^

2-5S LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

before they could effect any thing, except the
preparation of the Catechisms, Confession of
Faith, and such doctrinal articles, in which they
all agreed. And when at last, with extreme
difficulty, the Assembly had completed their
complicated model of church-government, and
had begun to get a part of the machinery into
actual operation, it was too late ! All the wheels
were broken at once, when Cromwell stamped
with his heavy heel, and the Long Parliament
vanished.

Of that redoubtable " Five," were Dr. Good-
win and Philip Nye, who knew of old what a
perilous debater Mr. Cotton could be. Right
glad would they have been, in those " wars of
the Lord," to have had the aid of three champi-
ons from New England. But these latter were,
doubtless, better employed in completing and
settling the work in which they were here
engaged. Mr. Hooker and Mr. Cotton were
then occupied in the preparation of " A Survey
of the Sum of Church-Discipline." The first
copy of this work was lost at sea by shipwreck
on its way to England to be printed. Another
copy had a happier passage, and was published
at London in 1648. It is in two books ; of

LIFE OP JOHN COTTON. 259

which the first is by Mr. Hooker, and the other
by Mr. Cotton. On tlie title-page first printed,
the whole work is attributed to Mr. Hooker :
from which it has happened that Mr. ^Cotton's
share in it has escaped the notice of most of
those who have spoken of it. This was a very
important treatise in its day ; and it was edited
and prefaced by Dr. Goodwin. The editor,
alluding to the loss of the original copy, makes
a remark upon it worth transcribing. " The
destiny which hath attended this book, hath
visited my thoughts with an apprehension of
something like an omen to the cause itself: that
after the overwhelming of it Aviih a flood of
obloquies, and disadvantages, and misrepresen-
tations, and injurious impressions cast out after,
it, it misfht in the time which God alone hath
put in his own power, be again emergent." He
also compares the cause to seed-corn, which, if
it fall to the ground and die, together with some
of those who scatter it, shall at last bring forth
much fruit. These presages seem to be in latter
stages of fulfillment. For, though long depressed,
and, in a manner buried, the principles of Con-
gregationalism have never, since the primitive
ages, spread so rapidly as of late years.

260 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

Most of the ablest treatises which appeared in
defence of those principles in the seventeenth
century, went from New England. Mr. Cotton
did more in this way than any of our divines :
but valuable books were prepared by Hooker,
Davenport, Stone, Allen, Shepard, Richard Ma-
ther, Thompson, Welde, Norton, and others.
This was the great controversy of their day.
Our fathers studied it with care. There was
scarcely a minister of note among them, who did
not preach and publish upon it. They were far
enough from setting the pattern for that spurious
liberality, which is now so much in vogue, and
which dreads to have any thing said or done
about Congregationalism for fear of making it
sectarian.

In the year 1643, all the ministers in the
country, to the number of fifty, assembled at
Cambridge. " They sat in the college, and
had their diet there after the manner of schol-
ars' commons, but somewhat better, yet so
ordered as it came not to above sixpence the
meal for a person." This frugality is the most
remarkable thing recorded of this synod. Mr.
Cotton and Mr. Hooker were the moderators.
The main business was, to dissuade the New-

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 261

bury ministers, Thomas Parker and James
Noyes, from attempting to introduce the Pres-
byterian government in their church.

While we are upon synods, we may as well
speak of the most important meeting of the kind
ever held in New England. It was convened
at Cambridge late in 1646, under the auspices
of the magistrates. After three sessions, the
last of which terminated on the 28th of August,
1648, they presented to the churches and the
civil government, the celebrated " Cambridge
Platform of Church Government." Having
fully discussed the work, the General Court at
its next meeting but one " thankfully accepted
thereof, and declared their approbation of the
said Platform of Discipline, as being, for the
substance thereof, what they had hitherto prac-
ticed in their churches, and did believe to be
according to the Word of God." It thus re-
ceived in Massachusetts the sanction of law :
and indeed was adopted in all the New England
colonies, Rhode Island excepted, till the Say-
brook Platform was adopted in Connecticut sixty
years after. I believe that the articles of faith
in very many of our churches, expressly recog-
nize the Cambridge Platform as presenting the

262 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

principles of ecclesiastical order recognized and
practiced by them. And yet if any one were to
inquire how many, out of the thousands of
members of those churches who have subscribed
that declaration, have ever read the instrument
referred to, the result would be, perhaps, more
curious than gratifying. Less actual incon-
venience, however, has resulted from the too
general omission of the duty of examining this
instrument, than might have been expected.
The principles of Congregationalism are so few,
simple and intelligible, that the people obtain
some general understanding of them without
much special effort. Still it would be far bet-
ter, if the people who follow our system would
read the book in which it is set forth, together
with some of the valuable writings which have
recently appeared on the same subject.

But little novv remains to be considered, ex-
cept what relates to the personal character and
habits of Mr. Cotton.

In the family, he " ruled well his own
house ; " as became one who so well " ruled his
own spirit." If any thing went amiss, he never
corrected it in a passion : but, with great delib-
eration, began by showing what precept of the
Bible had been transgressed or disregarded.

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 263

At the devotions of the family, morning and
evening, he read a chapter, explaining and ap-
plying the contents in a practical manner, but
briefly. Before and after the reading, prayers
were made, though very short and pertinent.
He studied brevity in all : for he held, " that it
was a thing inconvenient many ways to be
tedious in family duties."

The Sabbath he kept most conscientiously
from evening to evening : and it is supposed to
be from his example, that the custom prevailed
so extensively in New England of " resting
according to the commandment " at the going
down of Saturday's sun. When that evening
arrived, he made a larger exposition at family
prayer than at other times. Then the children
and servants were thoroughly exercised in the
catechism, probably using such as were of his
own preparation : one of which, called " Milk
for Babes," was used for feeding the minds of
the New England children for many years after
his death. Another, called '* Meat for Strong
Men," became their diet at a maturer age,
" and nourished them up in the words of faith
and of good doctrine." The catechising over,
there followed prayer, and the singing of a

264 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

psalm. Mr. Cotton then withdrew to his study,
and its devotions, till the hour of repose.

The next morning, after the customary family
worship, he retired to his private communion
with God, till he went to tlie house of God, and
its public duties. Returning to his home about
noon, he at once secluded himself in his oratory
or study, into which there must be no intrusion,
except for the purpose of carrying him a very
slight repast. At the time for afternoon wor-
ship, he came forth again, as one who had been
holding converse with God in the mount of
prayer. Coming back from the sanctuary, he
first sought his retirement, and spent a season
in closet prayer. He then prayed with his fam-
ily ; after which each one of the household
repeated as much as could be remembered of
the sermons of the day. In those days, this
was the common practice in all Puritan fami-
lies. Almost every person was provided with a
book for the purpose of taking notes : so that
the congregation looked, as we should say, like
an assembly of reporters. This repetition of
sermons was thoroughly attended to : and happy
was the youth who could give the most exact
account of text, ajiplicalion, doctrine, divisions

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 265

and uses. Almost the only relic of this instruc-
tive custom which has come down to our day,
is the practice, still preserved in some families,
" of bringing home the text." While the good
old usage was kept up, the want of Sabbath
schools for the religious instruction of the young
was not much felt. Or rather, there was a Sab-
bath school, and that of the best kind, in every
family. In Mr. Cotton's household, when the
repeating of the sermons was finished, with all
the remarks and little explanations and dis-
cussions to which that exercise had given occa-
sion, the evening meal was served up. After
supper, another psalm was sung. Then the
good man, lifting up his eyes and hands, would
exclaim ; — " Blessed be God in Christ our
Saviour ! " — and the Sabbath was done. Be-
fore retiring to rest, he again, in his study,
committed all that he had done to that God
whom he " served with a pure conscience."

The sanctification of the Lord's day was a
very conspicuous trait of Puritan piety. Good
Thomas Shepard, gives as a reason for migra-
ting to this country, that he " saw the Lord
departed from England when Mr. Hooker and
Mr. Cotton were gone." That excellent man
VOL. I. 23

266 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

was extremely scrupulous in observing God's
holy day. His preparations for the pulpit were
commonly finished by two o'clock on Saturday
afternoon ; in allusion to which, he once used
these words ; — " God will curse that man's
labors, that lumbers up and down in the world
all the week, and then upon Saturday in the
afternoon goes to his study ; when as God
knows that time were little enough to pray in
and weep in, and get his heart into a frame fit
for the approaching Sabbath." This bears rather
hard on those ministers who are sometimes de-
scribed as " Saturday-afternoon-men." Such, if
any such there be, may derive instruction from
the following extract from a letter of Mr. Cot-
ton's, written to Rev. Nathaniel Rogers in
1630. " Studying for a sermon upon the Sab-
bath day, so far as it might be any wearisome
labor to invention or memory, I covet, when I
can, willingly to prevent it : and would rather
attend unto the quickening of my heart and
affections, in the meditation of what I am to
deliver. My reason is, much reading, and in-
vention, and repetition of things, to commit
them to memory, is a weariness to the flesh and
spirit too ; whereas the Sabbath day doth rather

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 267

invite unto an holy rest. But yet if God's
providence have straitened my time in the week-
days before, by concurrence of other business not
to be avoided, I doubt not, but the Lord, who
allowed the priests to employ their labor in kill-
ing their sacrifices on the Sabbath day, will
allow us to labor in our callings on the Sabbath,
to prepare our sacrifice for the people."

Mr. Cotton was always noted for his hospital-
ity. The stranger and the needy were enter-
tained at his table with a pastoral benignity. It
was rare that his house was without a guest.
It was a gospel inn. He used to say ; — " If a
man want an heart for this charity, it is not fit
such a man should be ordained a minister."
While he lived in England, he was noted for
his bounty to distressed ministers, many of whom
were deprived by prelatical rigor of the means
of subsistence before that rigor fell upon him.
Many of the refugees who were driven from
their flocks in Germany by the persecution then
raging in the Palatinate of the Rhine, found a
generous friend in him. Some of them were
very eminent divines, who requited his kindness
in Latin superlatives, the only coin the poor

268 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

souls could spare. "^ To his generous practice
there is recorded one of those exceptions which
" proves the rule." It shall be given in the
words of Mr. Whiting, who is speaking of Mr.
Cotton's manner of living at Old Boston in Old
England. " His heart and doors were open to
receive, (as all that feared God, so) especially-
godly ministers, which he most courteously en-
tertained, and many other strangers besides.
Only one minister, Mr. Hacket by name, which
had got into the fellowship of famous Mr. Ar-
thur Hildersham, with many other godly minis-
ters, and being acquainted with their secrets,
betrayed them into the prelate's hands : this
man coming into Boston and meeting with Mr.
Cotton, the good man had not the heart to speak
to him, nor invite him to his house ; which, he
said, he never did to any stranger that he knew
of before, much less to any minister."

Another instance in which Mr. Cotton showed
himself to be one of those who " devise liberal
things" occurred in 1651, while he was living in
America. There was a little Congregational

* la ihoir accounts of him, they styled him; — " Faiitor dociissi-
mus, clarissimus, fidalissimus, plurimumve honorandus."

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

269

Church of exiled Puritans at Segetea in Bermu-
da, of which Mr. Natlianiel White was pastor.
Banished by their opposers, this little flock re-
treated to one of the southern islands, a desolate
spot where they suffered severe hardship. When
the report reached Mr. Cotton, he exerted him-
self to procure collections for their relief. Near
eight hundred pounds was contributed by some
six or eight of the poor churches in the Bay.
A fourth part of the sum was gathered by the
Boston Church, where there was but one sub-
scription that equaled, and none that exceeded,
Mr. Cotton's. The money was laid out in corn
and other necessaries, and sent, by the hand of
two brethren, in a small vessel hired for the
purpose. It arrived at its destination, on the
very day when the afflicted exiles had made a
personal distribution of their last handful of
meal, and had no prospect before them but that
of speedily famishing to death. On that self-
same day too, their believing pastor had preached
upon that most suitable text ;— " The Lord is my
Shepherd, I shall not want." The admiring
€xiles could not sufficiently express their grati-
tude for this timely succor from their New
England friends. "For the administration of
23*'

270 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

this service not only supplied the want of the
saints ; but is abundant also by many thanksgiv-
ings to God;"

In reviewing what his contemporaries have
said of Mr. Cotton, we cannot but be struck with
the high repute in which he was held for learn-
ing. This was a quality in the absence of
which, no minister in the days of the Puritans
could command respect. A pious and learned
ministry, our fathers considered to be a necessary
of life. A Dutch scholar of distinction heard
Mr. Cotton preach at Boston in Old England,
and declared; — "that never in his life had he
seen such a conjunction of learning and plain-
ness as there was in the preaching of this wor-
thy man." It was rare for him to allude to his
own acquisitions ; but in the confidence of friend-
ship, Mr. Cotton once said ; — " That he knew
not of any difficult place in all the whole Bible,
which he had not weighed somewhat unto satis-
faction." He had an immense library for those
days ; and an immense acquaintance with it.
But his favorite author was one whose name is
not apt to be spoken with commendation by
" lips polite." Said Mr. Cotton ; — " I have
read the fathers, and the schoolmen, and Calvin

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

271

too : but I find that he that has Calvin has them
all." When asked in liis later days, why he
indulo-ed himself in nocturnal studies more than
formerly, he answered with a smile ; — " Because
I love to sweeten my mouth with a piece of
Calvin before I go to sleep." It is needless to
ask what were the doctrinal sentiments of a man
with such a moral taste as this. It is evident
that he held to that Pauline system, which is
properly the belief of minds naturally strong, or
highly illuminated by the Spirit of grace. No
person can be both an intelligent and ardent
Calvinist, who has not either a profound and
penetrating judgment, capable of grasping truths
of the first magnitude ; or else a heart intensely
excited and irresistibly led by that spiritual in-
fluence, which the gospel describes as essential
to salvation.

The habits of Mr. Cotton, from youth to age,
were those of an indefatigable student. He was
an early riser, devoting the morning hours to
closer application. In his later years, he ab-
stained from any evening repast ; occupying the
time appropriated to supper in reading, reflection
and prayer. Having a vigorous constitution,
his life and labors were happily prolonged by

272 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

careful diet and regular living. He rarely
needed any other doctor for the body. Dryden
says :

, " The first physicians by debauch were made ;

Excess began, and sloth sustains the trade."

He was " sparing of sleep, more sparing of
words, but most sparing of time." His study
was his paradise, which he never willingly left,
except to do some good office. Unseasonable
visitors, who consumed his precious time, he
treated with all gentleness and urbanity : but
after such an one had retired, he would say wiih
some regret ; — " I had rather have given this
man an handful of money, than have been kept
thus long out of my study." He kept by him a
sand-glass which ran for four hours : this turned
over three times, measured his day's work. Of
this no small part consisted in fervent prayer :
for he held with Luther, that he who has prayed
well, has studied well.

In the manner of his preaching, Mr. Cotton
was plain and perspicuous. He conscientiously
forbore to make any display of his vast learning
in the pulpit. He addressed himself to the
common people. His chief anxiety was, to be

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

273

understood. He would often say, though apt to
handle the deepest subjects ;— " I desire to
speak so as to be understood by the meanest
capacity." When an iron key would unlock
the mystery of godliness better than a golden
one, he preferred the cheaper, but more useful
metal. The wish of his heart, was to glorify
God, rather than to win commendation for hnn-
self. At the end of all his manuscript discour-
ses, he ever inserted this, or some similar
phrase,—" For thy glory, 0 God ! " In him,
the fumes of the " odorous lamp " of science
never dimmed the light of his piety.

He commonly bestowed great labor upon his
public discourses ; though he sometimes preached
with very great effect when he had no prepara-
tion or warning. Sometimes, as he was gomg
to the pulpit, his text would open to him in a
new and striking manner ; he would then un-
fold it by the hour, expressing himself with
such steadiness and precision, that the most
critical of his hearers would not be aware that
they were listening to an unstudied effort.

In vindication of his plain and familiar way
of preaching, Mr. Cotton would say ;— " If I
preach more scholastically, then only the learn-

274 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

ed, and not the unlearned, can so understand as
to profit by me ; but if I preach plainly, then
both the learned and unlearned will understand
me, and so I shall profit all." He viewed the
subject just as Martin Luther did, as he is
reported to have expressed himself in his table
talk. When Dr. Erasmus Albert was to preach
before the prince-elector, Luther said to him ; —
*' Let all your preaching be in the most simple
and plainest manner : look not to the prince,
but to the plain, simple, gross and unlearned
people ; of which cloth the prince himself is
also made. If I, in my preaching, should have
regard to Philip Melanchthon, and other learned
doctors, then should 1 work but little goodness.
I preach in the simplest sort to the unskillful,
and the same giveth content to all. Hebrew,
Greek and Latin I spare, till we learned ones
come together, as then we make it so curled and
finical, that God himself wondereth at us." At
another time, the stout reformer exclaimed ; —
" When preachers come to me, to Melanchthon,
to doctor Pommern, &c., then let them show
their cunning, how learned they be ; — they
shall be well put to their trumps. But to
sprinkle out Hebrew, Greek and Latin in their

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 275

public sermons, the same savoreth merely of
pride, which agreeth neither with time nor
place, nor is it pertinent. In the church,
among the congregation, we ought to speak, as
we use at home in the house, the plain mother-
tongue, which every one understandeth, and is
acquainted withal."

Of the happy effect of Mr. Cotton's manner
of preaching, we have a very pleasing and in-
structive example in the autobiography of that
worthy old soldier of Jesus Christ, Captain
Roger Clap. Having spoken of his admission
to the Church in Dorchester, at its formation in
1630, he proceeds with the relation of his sub-
sequent experience in religion. " Jesus Christ
being clearly preached, and the way of coming
to him by believing was plainly shown forth ;
yet because many, in their Relations, spake of
their great terrors and deep sense of their lost
condition, and I could not so find, as others did,
the time when God wrought the work of con-
version in my soul, nor in many respects the
manner thereof ; it caused in me much sadness
of heart, and doubtings how it was with me,
whether the work of grace were ever savingly
wrought in my heart or no ? How lo cast off

276 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

all hope, to say, and verily to believe that there
was no work of grace wrought by God in my
heart, this I could not do ; yet how to be in
some measure assured thereof was my great
concern. But hearing Mr. Cotton preach out
of the Revelations, that Christ's Church did
come out of great tribulation, he had such a
passage as this in his sermon ; — ' That a small
running Stream was much better than a great
hand Flood of Water, though the Flood maketh
the greatest Noise : so,^ saith he, ' A little con-
stant Stream of godly Sorroiu, is better than
great Horror.'' God spake to me by it, it was
no little support unto me. And God helped me
to hang on that text ; (and through his grace I
will continue so to do,) namely, ' This is a faith-
ful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that
Jesus Christ came into the world to save sin-
7iers.^ '"^ May the words of Mr. Cotton comfort
some who read these pages, even as when they
came with a blessing to that right old Puritan !
Besides his incessant preaching, and a large
correspondence in which he was very usefully

* Memoirs of Capt Roger Clap. Boston, 1731. Reprinted by
David Clapp, Jr. 184 Washington street, 1844, p. 24.

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 277

employed as a casuist, being expert in the solv-
ing of cases of conscience, he was much engaged
in extraordinary labors. In the frequent fast-
days appointed by his Church in those troublous
times, he would be engaged in prayer and
preaching for five and six hours together. He
would also keep many whole days of fasting by
himself, occupying the time with humiliation of
his soul and prayer. He also observed, as oc-
casion prompted, entire days of private thanks-
giving for special mercies received.

Of all his more important publications, we
have had occasion to speak in the course of this
narrative. Most of them were called forth
by the controversies which then agitated the
Church on the subject of government and dis-
cipline. They are remarkable for the mild
Christian spirit which pervades them. " None
will blame a man," says Thomas Fuller, " for
arming his hands with hard and rough gloves,
who is to meddle with briers and brambles."
But though he had to deal with some of the
most thorn-backed and scratching antagonists,
they could not provoke him to anger. Though
a most tenacious and vigorous maintainor of the
truth, he never lost " the meekness and gentle-
voL. I. 24

278 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

ness " which he learned of his divine Master.
" It may fairly be said that an amiable spirit in
controversy forms one of the most incontroverti-
ble evidences of elevated piety, because it is
precisely this point in which so many men of
indubitable excellence have failed." Good men
have often debated, " as if personal invective,
and embittering a style, were God's way of
bettering a cause, or battering an opinion." As
to the temper in which controversy should be
conducted, Mr. Cotton may serve " as a pattern
for all answerers to the world's end." Through
the spirit in which he replied, he did like Job
with the books of his adversaries, " and bound
them as a crown to him."

We have alluded to his extensive correspond-
ence. But little of it has escaped the ravages
of time. Among others, he maintained a friend-
ly correspondence with archbishop Usher. As
a sample of the manner in which he wrote
familiarly to his pious friends, an extract is
here given from a letter dated the ninth of
March, 1631 ; and addressed to the reverend
Nathaniel Rogers, who was afflicted with a very
tedious and disheartening malady. '* I bless
the Lord with you, who supporteth your feeble

LIFE OF JOHN COTTOf^. 279

body to do him service, and meanwhile perfect-
eth the power of his grnce in your weakness.
You know who said it, ' Unmortified strength
posteth hard to liell, but sanctified weakness
creepeth fast to heaven.' Let not your spirit
faint, though your body do. Your soul is pre-
cious in God's sight ; your hairs are numbered ;
and the number and measure of your fainting
fits, and wearisome nights, are weighed and
limited by his hand, who hath given you his
Lord Jesus Christ, to take upon him your in-
firmities, and bear your sicknesses."

Among other distinguished correspondents of
Mr. Cotton's was one beyond comparison the
greatest man of his time. The life of Oliver
Cromwell is yet to be written. It has, as yet,
been " attempted" only ; and that in the most
murderous manner. For a considerable period
after his death, it would have been regarded as
high treason to have presented a true picture of
his merits. And when, at last, the expulsion of
the Stuarts left historians at liberty to do some
justice to Cromwell's character, the age had be-
come too degenerate to understand or appreciate
the man. The materials for his history were
only such as had been collected by his bitter

280 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

foes : whose only study was to conceal every
thing which could adorn his memory, and parade
every thing which could be found or invented to
blacken it. The present generation takes its
idea of the man, either from Clarendon, who
hated his politics ; or from Hume, who hated his
religion ; or from inferior authors, who hated
every thing about him. He is commonly re-
garded as a person of extraordinary talent, but
whose talent lay chiefly in the line of canting
hypocrisy. His fame, however, is destined to
emerge from the clouds which have so long
obscured it. Whoever reads, with unprejudiced
mind, the recent collection of his letters and
speeches, wherein Cromwell speaks for himself
in his own way, will feel a revolution in his
opinions of the Protector. He possessed the
very highest capacity for both military and civil
affairs, ranking him among the very first of sol-
diers and statesmen. To this he added a piety
the most profound and unaffected, constantly and
naturally pervading all language, whether on
the most private or public occasions. He as-
sumed the high station which he so ably filled,
in obedience to what he felt to be a divine call,
requiring of him what he alone could have ef-

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 2S1

fected, — the preservation of the peace, liberty
and religion of his distracted country.

In Carlyle's collection we find the first of
Cromwell's letters to Mr. Cotton, which was all
written with the Protector's own hand. In con-
nection with it, that strange " elucidator" re-
marks in his own fantastic idiom as follows ; —
" Reverend John Cotton is a man still held in
some remembrance among our New England
friends. A painful preacher, oracular of high
gospels to New England ; who in his day was
well seen to be connected with the Supreme
Powers of this Universe, the word of him being
as a live coal to the hearts of many." Carlyle
supposes that Cotton had been writing to Oliver
concerning some act of Parliament for propagat-
ing the gospel in New England. This is a
mistake. The Protector had written to Rev.
William Hooke, who was Mr. Davenport's col-
league at New Haven ; and who, a few years
after was one of Oliver's chaplains. In his
letter to Mr. Hooke, Oliver had sent loving and
respectful salutations to Mr. Cotton. Mr.
Hooke, whose wife was near of kin to Cromwell,
intimated the message to Mr. Cotton, with the
suggestion that a letter from him to the Protec^
24*

282 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

tor would be taken in good part. Mr. Cotton
accordingly wrote a letter of some length, which
is preserved in Hutchinson's Collection. It is
occupied, after the manner of a solution of a case
of conscience, with a cautious vindication of
Cromwell's policy, especially in the matters
of dosing the Long Parliament with " Pride's
purge," and demanding justice upon the head of
a perjured and traitorous king. Mr. Cotton,
having summed up the considerations belonging
to the case in a manner accordant with the
views which Cromwell himself appears to have
taken of it, goes on to say; — " These things are
so clear to mine own apprehension, that I am
fully satisfied, that you have all this while fought
the Lord's battles, and the Lord hath owned
you, and honored himself in you, in all your
expeditions ; which maketh my poor prayers the
more serious, and faithful, and affectionate, (as
God helpeth,) in your behalf." This letter is
dated the twenty-seventh of May, 1651. Crom-
well's reply is dated the second of October fol-
lowing. It owns, as Carlyle says, " Their gen-
eral relationship as Soldier of the gospel and
Priest of the gospel, high brother and humble
one ; appointed, both of them, to fight for it to

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 283

the death, each with such weapons as were
given him."->'= Other letters, now lost, passed
between them.

In stature, Mr. Cotton was rather low, and
slightly inclined to be robust. He had a fair
complexion, and ruddy countenance : and his
locks, which were naturally brown, in his later
life had a snowy whiteness, which, as " a crown
of glory" made our patriarch's aspect venerable
to behold. There was an inexpressible majesty
in his mien, which compelled the respect of all
who approached him : and the voice of profane-
ness was hushed when he was by. The inn-
keeper at Derby, where Mr. Cotton often visited
while he dwelt in England, used to tell his com-
panions that he wished that man were out of his
house, for he was not able to swear with him
under his roof.

His voice was not strong ; but clear and dis-
tinct, and heard with ease in the largest assem-
blies. He delivered himself in the pulpit with
much dignity, using a natural and becoming
gesture of the right hand. But such a divine
power and holy unction attended his grave and

* Oliver Cromwell's Letlers and Speeches, Letter CXXV.

284 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

earnest manner, that Mr. Wilson said of him ; —
" Mr. Cotton preaches with such authority,
demonstration and life, that methinks, when he
preaches out of any prophet or apostle, I hear
not him ; I hear that very prophet and apostle :
yea, I hear the Lord Jesus Christ himself speak-
ing in my heart." 0 this is the true Christian
eloquence, when the lips of the ambassador seem
to breathe the very words of the Lord of life and
salvation !

He had an almost miraculous evenness of
vemper. No insult could disturb his self-pos-
lession. Such was the meekness and mildness
Df his disposition, that Mr. Norton used to regard
him as the Moses and Melanchthon of the new
world. In the words of that good old puritan,
Simeon Ashe, " he was a dwarf in regard of
humility, but a giant in regard of strength."
Though but a lamb in his own cause, like his
master, he was a lion in that of God and his
church. His gentleness had nothing about it,
either nerveless or cowardly. His chief services
in behalf of the truth he loved were ever marked
by a modest estimation of himself. " The high-
est flames," says Jeremy Taylor, " are the most
tremulous : and so are the most holy and emi-

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 295

nently religious persons more full of awfulness,
and fear, and modesty, and humility." Mr.
Williams, when his adversary, candidly owned
the goodness of his heart, and commended his
attachment to the truths of the gospel. Mr.
Cotton once said to a confidential friend ; —
" Angry men have an advantage above me : the
people dare not set themselves against such men,
because they know it will not be borne ; but some
care not what they say or do about me, because
they know I will not be angry with them again."
As a specimen of the manner in which he
met abusive treatment, we are told, that he was
once /ollowed from the church to his home by a
peevish, complaining hearer, who tried to pro-
voke him by telling him, that his preaching had
latterly become either very dark, or very flat.
To this he mildly answered, " Both, brother, it
may be, both : let me have your prayers that it
may be otherwise."

On another occasion a very ordinary sort of
a man had boasted of his clear insight into the
book of Revelation. Mr. Cotton modestly re-
plied ;— " Well, I must confess that I want light
in those mysteries." Upon this, the man sent
him by a servant a pound of candles. The good

236 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

minister received this piece of impudence with
a silent smile ; revenging himself only by a
christian taciturnity. Mather, relating the cir-
cumstance in his magniloquent style, remarks ; —
" Mr. Cotton would not set the beacon of his
great soul on fire, at the landing of such a little
cock-boat."

The excellent Mr. Flavel relates an incident
of this kind. While Mr. Cotton lived at Boston
in old England, he was seen passing along the
street, by some gay young fellows, who had been
at the tavern, indulging in that, which Solomon
says, is a mocker : and is never more so than
when it makes mockers of those who use it.
One of them says to his companions ; — " I will
go and put a trick upon old Cotton." Crossing
over to the reverend and holy man, he whispered
in his ear ; — " Cotton, thou art an old fool."
That good man, without the slightest irritation,
looked mildly at him, and replied; — " I confess
I am so : the Lord make both me and thee wiser
than we are, even wise unto salvation." Re-
turning abashed to his companions, the wanton
insulter told them of this meek reply, which
sobered for that time their intemperate mirth,
and perhaps first taught them "how awful good-
ness is."

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 287

These examples provoke a sort of impatience,
that more of his expressions have not been pre-
served. We are sure that he daily uttered such
instructive dictates of a mind, adorned with un-
affected humility, singularly refined from the
dross of earthly passions, and mellowed to a
sweet maturity of grace by the ripening warmth
of close communion with the Lamb of God.

The labors of Mr. Cotton were hastening to
a close, by exposure to wet in passing the ferry
to Cambridge, where he went to preach to the
students. This sermon was from Isaiah 54: 13.
" And all of thy children shall be taught of the
Lord.'! Among those who heard it, was Increase
Mather, then a young scholar, and in after life
married to Mr. Cotton's only surviving daughter.
Dr. Mather never forgot the impressions made
upon his mind by that discourse. His powers of
utterance failed while speaking. He was attack-
ed with inflammation of the lungs, became asth-
matic, and was seized by a complicated disease,
which he felt as a warning that his end drew
nigh.

The next Sabbath he took for his text tne last
four verses of the second epistle to Timothy, on
which epistle he had been expounding in course.

288 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

He told his auditory the reason of his taking so
many verses at once ; — " Because else," said he,
" I shall not live to make an end of this epistle."
On the following Sabbath, being the twenty-fifth
of November, he delivered his last sermon with
much difficulty, on John 1 : 14, on the glory of
Christ, "from the faith to the sight of which he
was hastening." He had the feelings of another
of the non-conforming divines, who said ; — " If
I must be idle, I had rather be idle under ground,
than above ground." He chose rather to be
dead, than live dead ; having ofien expressed a
wish that he " might not outlive his work."

This duty done, Mr. Cotton spent one day in
his study, in special prayer and preparation for
the last great conflict which he was assured was
at hand. On leaving that beloved and familiar
apartment, he remarked to his consort ; — " I
shall go into that room no more ! " He now
betook himself to the couch, where he expected
" the mercy-stroke of death," the blow that must
shatter the last link with which sin or sorrow
could fetter his soul. Although his foretastes
and promises of heaven chiefly attracted him
thitherward, he declared that it greatly contribu-
ted to his readiness to depart, when he consid-

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 289

ered the company of saints, so many of whom
he had known and dearly loved, in whose com-
munion he was shortly to mingle.

Magistrates, clergymen, and private Christians
in great numbers resorted to his sick-bed, mourn-
fully listening to his dying counsels. Mr. Dun-
ster, at that time President of Harvard College,
with many tears besought his blessing, saying ;
" I know in my heart, they whom you bless
shall be blessed." Shortly before his death, Mr.
Cotton sent for the elders of the church, who
prayed over him. He exhorted them to feed the
flock of which they were overseers, and to watch
against those declensions to which he saw that
professors of religion were tending. He added; —
" I have now, through grace, been more than
forty years a servant unto the Lord Jesus Christ,
and have ever found him a good master."
When his colleague, Mr. Wilson, a man who
abounded in love as much as Mr. Cotton did in
light, took his last leave, he breathed an ardent
wish that God would lift up the light of his
countenance upon the dying man ; he promptly
replied ; — " God hath done it already, brother !"
He then called for his children to whom he left
the covenant of God as their chief portion.

VOL. T. 2'5

290 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

Having settled all his affairs, and taken leave of
the world, he begged to be left alone for the
little time he had to live, that his soul might be
undisturbed in communing with his God. He
caused the curtains to be drawn, and exacted a
promise of the gentleman who attended him,
that the privacy of his chamber should not be
interrupted. Then reminding that gentleman,
who was a beloved member of his church, of
that promise, he gave him this parting benedic-
tion ; — " The God that made you, and bought
you with a great price, redeem your body and
soul unto himself!" These were the last words
he was heard to utter. After a few speechless
hours, he quietly breathed out his spirit into the
hands of Him who gave it. This gentle trans-
lation of his soul from earth to heaven, took
place shortly after eleven o'clock of Thursday
morning, the twenty-third of December, 1652, in
the sixty-eighth year of his age. On the twen-
ty-eighth of the same month, he was honorably
interred by a mourning concourse of the people,
among whom he had ministered in holy things
for more than nineteen years. He was borne on
the shoulders of his brother-ministers to his last
sleeping place, in a tomb of brick, in what is

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 291

called the " Chapel Burying Ground." A deep
and sincere mourning' was made for him by his
afflicted flock, with whom all the scattered
churches of New England joined their sorrows ;
and numerous elegies, according to the taste of
the times, recorded the general grief. The lec-
tures in his church during the following winter,
preached, as they were by the neighboring cler-
gymen, were but so many funeral discourses. In
the first of them, by his old friend and fellow-
laborer and fellow-sufferer, Richard Mather of
Dorchester, he gave the following counsel to the
church ; — "Let us pray that God would raise up
some Eleazer to succeed this Aaron : but you
can hardly expect, that so large a portion of the
Spirit of God should dwell in any one, as dwelt
in this blessed man." His departure was la-
mented as a public loss in all the churches of the
country. In particular, Mr. Davenport most
tenderly bewailed it in a sermon at New Haven,
from the w^ords; — " I am distressed for thee, my
brother, very pleasant hast thou been unto me."
The south part of Mr. Cotton's dwelling-
house was built by Sir Henry Vane, who
boarded there with him till Sir Henry returned
to England, first giving that addition to Sea-
born Cotton. It stood on the lot south of

292 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

what was lately the estate of Gardner Green,
Esq. ; and was part of the ground now occu-
pied by the " Tremont Row," nearly opposite
to the Savings Bank. That rise of ground
long bore the name of "Cotton's Hill." His
house was still standing, then the oldest house
in Boston, some twenty years ago. The inven-
tory of his estate amounted to one thousand and
thirty-four pounds, four shillings. His will pro-
vided, that, in certain contingencies, half of his
estate should go to Harvard College, aj^d half to
support the free school in Boston. Those con-
tingencies never happened : but the provision
made for them evinces his deep interest in the
important work of education. To the Church
he bequeathed a piece of silver plate to be used
at the communion table, where at his first com-
ing he had made use of wooden chalices. This
reminds us of the lament uttered by one of the
writers in the middle ages, who sighs for those
days of primitive piety, when the church in her
poverty had wooden cups, but golden priests :
but now, alas ! he cries, we have golden chalices
and wooden priests.

The first place of worship in which he here
officiated, and which was the first ever erected

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 293

to God upon this peninsula, stood in what is in
these republican days State street, but in those
monarchal times was King's Street. It was
built in 1632. There are lovers of liturgic
pomp, who cannot feel the spirit of devotion un-
less awakened by columned aisles, and stained
windows, and splendid altars, and sacred vest-
ments, and responsive readings, and resounding
organs, and choral chants. Such worshipers,
as it has been forcibly said, " seem to have no
idea of the Supreme Being but as a Grand Mas-
ter of ceremonies to the whole universe." They
would have scorned the adorations of that mud-
walled edifice, with its lowly roof of thatch,
where, for eight years of sadness, Wilson and
Cotton, with their exiled flock, worshiped in
spirit and in truth the Father w^ho " seeketh
such to worship him." Let that humble struc-
ture be commemorated with those wattled tem-
ples, in which the first converts to Christianity
among our British sires, who dwelt in what was
then a land as savage and heathen as was this,
before the pilgrims came, sang high praises to the
babe that was laid in the manger at Bethlehem.
The second house of worship was built in
what is now called Cornhill Square in 1640.
25=^

294 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

After standing for seventy-one years, it was re-
built in Cornhill Square in 1712. After the
lapse of near a century, the First Church re-
moved, and built the present meeting-house in
Chauncy Place. Oh, who that passes by that
venerated sanctuary, can refrain from calling to
mind that holy and apostolic succession of men
of God, from the warm-hearted Wilson to the
orthodox and eloquent Foxcroft, who have min-
istered to that famous Church, and the multi-
tude of its sainted dead ? And who that reflects
upon the fearful falling away of that assembly
from the faith of their fathers, can suppress the
lamentation of the prophet ; — " How is the gold
become dim ! how is the most fine gold changed !"
During the nineteen years and more, that Mr.
Cotton presided in that Church, one thousand
and thirty-four children received the seal of bap-
tism. Of these four hundred and fifty-six were
females ; and five hundred and thirty-eight were
males, being a large excess in favor of the latter.
The number of baptisms in each year, exceeded
fifty. On this duty of sealing the children of
the covenant, and placing Christ's mark upon
the lambs of his flock, the teacher laid great
stress, and imparted much instruction, some
part of which remains in print.

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 295

During the same period, there were admitted to
the Church, three hundred and six men, and three
hundred and forty-three women : in all six hun-
dred and forty-nine, being an average of thirty-
four admissions in each year. Seventeen persons
had been publicly admonished for different offen-
ces ; and five of them who could not be reclaimed,
were cut ofTby excommunication. Considering
the numbers of the Church, and the strictness of
the watch and discipline then maintained, so
small a number of ecclesiastical censures argues
great purity and blamelessness on the part of the
members at large.

Mr. Cotton had three sons and as many
daughters ; all by his second wife. Seaborn
Cotton, his oldest child, graduated at Harvard
College in 1651. He was ordained the second
minister of Hampton in New Hampshire, in
1660, where he spent his days in gfeat useful-
ness and honor. He died the nineteenth of
April, 1686, aged fifty-two years. He was suc-
ceeded by his own son, John Cotton, who also
died there at the same age of fifty-two.

The second son of the patriarch of Boston,

John Cotton the younger, graduated at Harvard

"College in 1657. For several years he preached

296 LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

to the Indians at Martha's Vineyard, in their
own language. He was ordained at Plymouth
in 1669, and labored there in the ministry with
great diligence and success for thirty years, both
among the whites and Indians. In his fifty-
ninth year he removed to Charleston, South
Carolina, where he gathered the Congregational
Church, which still exists, and is one of the
principal churches in that city. He died in less
than a year after, on the eighteenth of Septem-
ber, 1669. His son, Roland Cotton, graduated
at Harvard in 16So, and was ordained the first
minister of Sandwich, Massachusetts, in 1694.
He also preached to the Marshpee Indians, of
whom, in 1693, two hundred and fourteen were
under his care, while five hundred others in the
neighborhood of Plymouth were under the care
of his father. Roland Cotton died at Sandwich
in 1722. He had a brother, Josiah Cotton, who
graduated at Harvard in 1698. He was Clerk
of Court, Register of Deeds, and Judge of the
Common Pleas. He also preached to the In-
dians, at five difl^erent stations, for nearly forty
years. He died the nineteenth of August, 1756,
aged seventy-five. Three other brothers of Ro-
land and Josiah were ministers. Roland had"

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. 297

three sons who were ministers of repute, John
Cotton at Newton, Nathaniel Cotton of Bristol,
and Ward Cotton of Boylston. Josiah Cotton
of Plymouth had a son John, who was the first
minister of Halifax.

There have been many other descendants of
the Boston minister, who have inherited his
name and calling. In him there was a fulfill-
ment of the promise ;— " My Spirit that is upon
thee, and my words which I have put in thy
mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor
out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the
mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the Lord, from
henceforth and forever." It may be said of the
posterity of very many of the pious settlers of
this "New English Canaan ;"—" Their seed
shall be known among the Gentiles, and their
offspring among the people : all that see them
shall acknowledge them, that they are the seed
which the Lord hath blessed."

But we must revert to the immediate family
of the venerable saint of Boston. His youngest
son, Roland, and his oldest daughter, Sarah,
died nearly at the same time, at an early age, of
the small pox, which raged in Boston in 1649.
Sarah died on the twentieth of November. Her

298 LIFE OF JOHN COTTb^N.

last words to her parents were ; — " Pray, my
dear father, let me now go home." In a few
lines of his we find the following language of
pious acquiescence in this affecting wish ; —

" Go then, sweet Sara, take thy Sabbath rest,
With thy great Lord, and all in heaven, blest."

Roland died nine days after his sister, on
which sad occasion, the submissive father again
vented his feelings in his antiquated measures.

"Suffer, saith Christ, your little ones,

To come forth, rae unto,
For of such ones my kingdom is.

Of grace and glory too.
We do not only suffer them,

But offer them to thee ;
Now, blessed Lord, let us believe,

Accepted that they be."

Of Mr. Cotton's younger daughters, one was
married to a respectable merchant by the name
of Egginton, but did not long survive the birth
of her only child. The child also in a few
years followed the mother to the grave. The
other daughter of Mr. Cotton became the wife
of Increase Mather, D. D., one of the most use-
ful men to Massachusetts whom that " mother
of great men " has ever produced. Through
Mrs. Mather, her father became the ancestor of

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

299

several of the most distinguished ministers of
the country. His celebrated grandson, Cotton
Mather, in our days so grossly slandered and
maligned, has noticed an interesting fact in re-
gard to the second, or Old North Church in
Boston. The formation of this church, in 1649,
appeared to be quite detrimental to the inter-
ests of Mr. Cotton ; and yet he cheerfully en-
couraged the undertaking, because it seemed to
be required by the interests of religion. Now,
of that very church, his son-in-law was pastor
above threescore years, and his grandson for
foriy-four.

Mr. Cotion's \vidow became the second wife
of Rev. Richard Mather of Dorchester, the father
of her son-in-law, to whom she thus became a
parent by a double affinity. She survived her
second husband, with whom she lived in great
happiness for many years.

We thus close our account of John Cotton,
and those connected with him. That star rose
brightly on the older England, and rode through
stormy skies. But it sweetly shed hs parting
rays on the newer England, at its serene and
unclouded setting. We close with the following
extract from his funeral elegy, by Benjamin

300

LIFE OF JOHN COTTON.

Woodbnd.e, D D., which, doubtless^T^ed
to the philosophic printer, Dr. Franklin, the hint
01 His famous epitaph upon himself;—

"A living, breathing Bible; tables where

Best covenants at large engraven were ;
Gospel and law in his heart had each its column :

H,s head an index to the sacred volume;
His very name a title-page ; and next

His life a commentary on the text.
O what a monument of glorious worth,

When in a new edition he comes forth
\^ iihout erratas, may we think he'U be.'
In leaves and covers of eternity.

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